Magic Candle has been called an Ultima clone, which is a fairly accurate description. But it also has many similarities with Wasteland, especially the skills and the ability to split up your party, a feature required for the solution of some of the puzzles.
The Magic Candle had two direct sequels, additionally there was a game set in the same universe, but with a simplified engine and simplified stats, The Keys to Maramon.
The Magic Candle is an old game published by Mindcraft Software. It's a very cool CRPG, especially for it's time. Neat things about it include:
- A large, dangerous world to explore.
- A skill based system where characters learn by doing and/or by training.
- Magical plants that you can pick and that grow back later if you don't take all of them.
- The ability to separate the party into groups and play a group while other groups are busy doing things like resting, training, memorizing spells, and earning gold in town.
- Time is important, and things take time to do.
- Many towns, and many NPCs to converse with.
- Uses tile-based art to cleverly represent overhead, isometric, and side perspectives.
The Magic Candle is a great example of anepic RPGin every sense of the word. The game has so many mini quests (hundreds, in fact) that it's impossible to do them all, so you will have to be selective and take copious notes lest you forget your main objective. Similar to Ultima IV, you will have to do a lot of talking to NPC's to glean information. What makes The Magic Candle a revolutionary RPG instead of merely a great game, though, is the abundance of nice little touches of realism. For example, when you are trecking through the moutains, the bird's eye view perspective will change a side view of your party standing at a washed-out bridge or ravine where you have to throw a rope to cross to the other side.
I enjoyed playing this game, although I think it's one for RPG purists only really. You need to give yourself an hour or so to get to grips with it and to get into the storyline of the game. The game also has quite a few keyboard commands to get used to. If you do persevere with it, you'll be rewarded with a decent RPG that has a good storyline and as much depth as the Ultima series.
