Merlin - The Quest for the Wand is a Windows 3.1 game, created by Carl Bjork in 1992.
The purpose of this game is to find a key hidden in one of the crates on the level one map, and bring it to the Gate of Billium (called Bill Gates). This will bring you to level two, where you must find a wand, hidden in one of the crates on the level two map, and bring it to Merlin's Castle. You are the light blue player who starts south of the blue castle.
You use the arrow keys to move around, and you move according to the die at the bottom of your screen: if the rectangle around the die is light blue, it is your turn to move, and if the die shows eg. 4 you can move 4 steps in one direction, if a dead end you can turn back.
You play against 1..3 computer players, you can set the number of computer players by pressing the key P in the main screen.
At the start of each new game all players gets one gold bar and one silver bar, one gold bar = 2 silver bars.
If a player wants to stop without moving as many steps as the die indicates he (or she) can push enter, but this costs one silver bar. If you want to go from land to sea you must pay one gold bar.
If a player stops on top of a crate he will open it, it might be empty, it might contain a silver or a gold bar, a key (level 1) or a wand (level 2) or he might be ambushed by triggerhappy gangsters that will mug him of all his gold and silver bars.
If a player stops on top of another player he will mug him of all his gold and silver bars, as well as taking the key/wand if the other player possesses it. The computerised players win by bringing the key/wand back to the black castle.
The die, and what is to be found under the different crates are decided by a random function initialised by the system clock, so that each game becomes unique.
![[screenshot]](/serve/win3_MERLIN/MERLIN_screenshot.gif)
