‘Magic: The Gathering Shandalar’ is the Most Fun Way to Play MTG
Magic: The Gathering Shandalar is old, weird, hard to install, and confusing to play. So, of course, I love it!
Magic: The Gathering has tons of ways to play. You can play Standard format, EDH/Commander, or even Pauper if you’re feeling frugal. You could also play online with a tool like MTG Arena if you want. These are all viable options. But, what if you want to play Magic as an openworld, isometric, roguelike? Well, have I got good news for you.
What Is Magic: The Gathering Shandalar?
Magic: The Gathering Shandalar was released in 1997 by MicroProse for Windows 95. The basic premise of the game is pretty far removed from your Standard game of Magic. You start by choosing your starting color and then creating your character.
After a few moments of world generation (yes, every game world is unique), you’re plopped into the world of Shandalar. No real tutorial or explanation of what to do or where to go. Retro gaming at its finest.
Dotted around the map are towns, random enemy encounters, special event locations, and of course, dungeons and mage towers. The game won’t tell you this, but your objective is to defeat the 5 wizards of each color. Their current Life total is marked by the yellow gems on their staves. As you defeat monsters of their color, they lose Life, making it easier when you go face them head-on.
Roaming around the map are monsters. When they touch you, you enter “combat”, which in this case is a mostly typical game of Magic: The Gathering. The UI is a little smushed and would make terrible wallpaper, but the elements are all there. Your board is on the bottom, life totals in the corners, hand in the popup window, and phases along the side.
And as you defeat monsters you’ll find cards and collect gold. You’ll need gold for Food (this game has a hunger system), and to buy new cards from the towns. The deck you start with is pretty bad and kinda all over the place. So, finding the right towns with the cards you want is important early.
The astute amongst you might have noticed something weird about these screenshots. Vow of Duty and Runed Servitor were released way after the aforementioned 1997. What gives? Well, have I got good news for you.
How to Actually Play Magic: The Gathering Shandalar
There are several ways you can play Magic: The Gathering Shandalar for yourself right meow. The most straightforward is to grab it from any abandonware site. The game goes by several titles, so be ready to check screenshots before downloading anything.
Abandonware is in that grey area of copyright law. However, designer David Etheridge from MicroProse has stated “I can’t tell you how amazing it is to see the game resurrected like this. 🙂“. So I think we’re in the clear for now.
But, there is another way. Shandalar Modern is a fan update to the game which adds “all” of the sets since the game’s initial release. They say that it’s all about the journey, not the destination. So keep that in mind when attempting to get this game running at all. It’s not easy.
This is the first video I used to get things up and running. It’s a little roundabout, but a more stable option overall. However, there is also this Google Drive file which has a pretty fully functional package. I haven’t checked with our lawyer, but I’m pretty sure you can’t sue me if you get a virus. But, as with any random file on the internet, please be careful downloading any random files. Anyway, extract it, dig for Shandalar.exe, and cross your fingers.
After that, there are patches to download which will improve the card list. Check the ReadMe files to get a better idea of what you need and where to get it. And finally, reading through this old forum thread helped me a lot as well.
Why I Love This Game
The controls are janky, the interface is questionable, it’s nearly impossible to install today, the AI is terrible, and it crashes constantly, so why do I love this game so much?
I don’t know. Shut up.
