First Multi-game Handheld Ever: Merlin, the Electronic Wizard - Rerez

I'm a big fan of electronic handheld games. There's a whole bunch that were released in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s and a lot of them suck. I mean obviously they can't all be good but there was one that was released in the late ‘70s that did a heck of a lot of things that I think set the standard for pretty much every handheld game that followed including Game Boys and Game Gears. We're going to be taking a look at one of the coolest handhelds Parker Brothers ever released. This is Merlin.

Merlin was a handheld electronic game that came out in 1978. For the time that this game was released the majority of electronic handheld devices were limited to one game. Sometimes that one game had variations of the game such as different rule sets or different gameplay utilizing the exact same graphics. This device uses a series of 15 buttons with 11 of them housing red LED lights. This one simple device is able to play six games and programs that are represented on the 11 button LED game grid. Some of the games could be played against another human player but the real fun of playing this is against the devices simplified AI known as Merlin. The first game Tic-Tac-Toe features a blinking light to represent you as the player and a solid light to represent Merlin’s selections and it's pretty much tic-tac-toe. It's fun and it works. The second game isn't really a game at all it's called Music Machine which pretty much was a simplified music sequencer. You could play a selection of eleven different chords or sounds that Merlin will remember and play back to you with a limit of up to 48 notes per composition. This is sometimes considered one of the earliest consumer level electronic synthesizers ever released. The third game is called Echo and it's pretty much just Simon. Music sequences of up to nine notes play and you need to replicate the song by hitting the right buttons. Very simple but fun.

The fourth game is called Blackjack 13. Using the buttons associated with the numbers one through nine you play a very simple game of blackjack. Even with the strict visual limitations this game works pretty well. Also this is the one game in the set that has a button that only works for it and the button is just called hit me. The fifth game is called Magic Square which is a pattern game very similar to Lights Out. It's pretty fun until you solve it once or twice then the challenge in the game is really just trying to solve it in as few moves as possible. The sixth and final game is called Mindbender which is pretty much just a number guessing game that's like Mastermind. An interesting game but easily my least favorite of all the six programs on Merlin.

This device has a very simple and sleek design and although the games may look simple the ingenuity and design it took Bob Doyle the creator of Merlin to think up the six games and programs with just eleven blinking LED lights is nothing short of amazing. When Merlin hit store shelves it was so popular that they released another version called Master Merlin. This one had nine games using the exact same led layout. In 1995 – over a decade after the original release of Merlin – Parker Brothers released a sequel called Merlin: the 10th Quest. It featured nine games and replaced the LED buttons with a liquid crystal display. However in 1995 releasing this probably wasn't a smart idea because by that time there were plenty of handheld portable video game systems on the scene. Systems like the Game Boy that by 1995 would have given you the ability to play from a library of hundreds of games. While Merlin: the 10th Quest is a really cool device and a good sequel to the original Merlin I don't think many people even remember it ever came out. The original Merlin is a pretty revolutionary device and I believe it was a stepping stone to all the portable technology we use today. Think about it if you're using an iPhone or Android, if you're using a 3DS or if you're even using a Vita all of those devices were inspired by the things that came from the past. And the Merlin is a pretty simple device but simple is what the game is all about nowadays.

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