Game:

Merlin's Apprentice (1995)

Duration: 10:45

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"Merlin's Apprentice" is an interesting and nice puzzle game developed for the Philips CD-i and PCs by Philips Media and the internal group, "FunHouse", in 1994/95 which features great animated scenes, vividly detailed graphics, great sound (where applicable) and an interesting development crew. Directed and produced by Cliff Johnson (best known for the computer puzzle games " The Fool's Errand" and "3 in Three") with voices by Cam Clarke (known for such voices as "Shotaro Kaneda" in the English Dub of "Akira" and "Liquid Snake" in the Metal Gear series) and special animation sequences by Brian Allegeier (who started out working on CD-i titles and later went on to work for Insomniac primarily designing "Rachet & Clank" games) to name a few, Merlin's Apprentice is a simple compilation of puzzles that you, the player, must complete if you wish to be the apprentice to the legendary wizard, Merlin. These riddles are scattered through woods and treacherous terrain and you must contend with the taunting and riddles of three demons who don't think you have what it takes to discover the secrets of the forest.

In the game, you must complete 30+ puzzles (thirty puzzles with multiple riddles at random or additional challenges based on difficulty) or metapuzzles which test your word comprehension and dicephering skills, foresight, reflexes, memory, and logic. Puzzles can be as simple as blasting a set number of onscreen objects or solving sliding picture puzzles to more complex puzzles such as dicephering sentences enscribed with runes or playing memory games such as "Simon Says". After completing puzzle sets, you can make potions with the ingredients you find to impress Merlin.

This is a video of the game in action recorded on original hardware using the crummy two-button paddle controller. Enjoy.