Magic Carpet 1001 is an unlicensed shoot-'em-up developed by Mega Soft (NTDEC) and distributed by in 1991 and later Caltron in 1992 and Asder in 1993. Its Caltron 6-in-1 incarnation is arguably the most well-known.
Overview
Magic Carpet 1001's gameplay
The game is a standard NES shoot-'em-up. It is four levels long and mostly takes place in an Arabian setting, with the fourth level being in space. There are many enemies that stand in the way of your character (an Aladdin-type who rides a magic carpet, although the title screen suggests he is a genie) which follow set patterns that become more complex with each level.
As well as this, all four levels have a different boss; a witch, a snake in a flying jar, a giant skull and giant lips respectively, with the latter often being considered to be far too difficult. Numerous power-ups can be collected at random by wiping out a certain group of enemies before they disappear, with P power-ups upgrading your weapon, S power-ups increasing the player's speed, an icon of your character's face for an extra life and hearts giving you several hit points. By default, your character starts with 6 lives, dies in one hit and he can only fire one shot on the screen at a time. Oddly for a shooter, this game doesn't have a score system whatsoever and the levels progress with the only warning being that the screen fades out after the boss. The ending is a picture of your character and (presumably) the damsel in distress you were rescuing, followed by a credits screen which has some of the names that appear in other Mega Soft games.
Hacks
Harry Potter's title screen is based off a poster
This game was later hacked in 1995 to produce Aladdin III, which is identical apart from the title screen which removes the company name and logo, as well as decreasing protagonist's minimal speed. This one appears on several multicarts. It is also unrelated to the Hummer Team pirate.
A couple of Harry Potter-themed games were hacks of this as well, released as Harry Potter and Harry Tour. These games replace the graphics and music (the games having the same music as each other) with the sound being considered by many to be awful in comparison to MC1001 and in general. The title screens for both games are based off one of the posters for the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, meaning that they were released in 2001 or later.
Trivia
- When the player exceeds 9 lives, the counter is replaced with the head of the protagonist.
