Museum of the Game ®

International Arcade Museum® — Killer List of Videogames®

Mystic Marathon

Description

Player controls his elf in a fast paced race across islands filled with magic. The first three across the finish line continue to the next race.

Mystic Marathon was produced by Williams Electronics, Inc. (1967-1985) in 1984.

Williams Electronics, Inc. (1967-1985) released 215 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1959. Williams Electronics, Inc. (1967-1985) was based in United States.

Other machines made by Williams Electronics, Inc. (1967-1985) during the time period Mystic Marathon was produced include: Roller Aces, Rat Race, MotoRace USA, Joust Pinball, Blaster, 1942, Inferno, Devastator, Pennant Fever, and Space Shuttle

Specs

Name	Mystic Marathon
Developer	Williams Electronics, Inc. (1967-1985) (United States)
Year	1984
Type	Videogame
KLOV/MOG #	8803
Class	Wide Release
Genre	Platform
Monitor	Orientation: Horizontal Type: Raster: Standard Resolution Color: Color
Conversion Class	unique
# Simultaneous Players	1
# Maximum Players	2
Game Play	Alternating
Control Panel Layout	Single Player Ambidextrous
Controls	Joystick: 8-way Buttons: 1 - Jump
Sound	Amplified Mono (one channel)
Cabinet Styles	Upright/Standard
Control Panel	Mystic Marathon Control Panel Image

Video Clips

Mystic Marathon 1984 Williams

Game Play

This is a cute game. You must race your character across a series of Islands. Along the way you must avoid apple-throwing trees, sinkholes, magic mushrooms and other threats. There are also items that can jump you ahead and/or speed you up: friendly butterflies, teleporting caves, magic piers, and canoes. There is a lot of competition amongst the elves so be speedy!

Mystic Marathon KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 3.25 (4 votes)

Fun Factor: 3.25

Overall Like	3.25
Fun (Social)	3.00
Fun (Solo)	3.25
Collector Desire	3.50

Technical Rating: 3.25

Gameplay	4.50
Graphics	2.75
Originality	3.25
Sound/Music	2.50

Personal Impressions and Technical Impressions each account for half of the total score. Within the Personal Impressions category, Like carries a little more weight than the other factors.

Images

Trivia

The lead programmer was Kristina Donofrio who built the operating framework, most of the animations, the gameplay and put it all together.

Ken Graham was the secondary programmer on the project. He modified the art system to use the two video planes for the artists on the project, converted the images and helped with some of the character animations, the setup and programmed the title animation.

Some of the people adding character suggestions included Noah Falstein (the Ogre and the Helping Hands) and Python Angelo (the sharks and the apple trees).

Cabinet Information

Mystic Marathon was released only as a conversion game by Williams, which is why there are no original cabinets for it.

Conversion

Runs on nearly identical hardware to Inferno, Joust 2 and Turkey Shoot.

Miscellaneous

The screenshots used on this page were taken from MAME, and do not reflect the actual colors of the game. The water and sky are blues, the grass is green, and the rocks are grey.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Mystic Marathon Census

There are 15,264 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 9,669 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 166,973 machines (7,000 unique titles).

Common - There are 31 known instances of this machine owned by Mystic Marathon collectors who are active members. Of these, 7 of them are original dedicated machines. 14 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet. 10 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

For Sale - There are 2 active VAPS members with a Mystic Marathon machines for sale. There is one active VAPS member with an extra Mystic Marathon circuit board for sale.

Wanted - There are 3 active VAPS members currently looking for Mystic Marathon. There is one active VAPS member looking for a Mystic Marathon circuit board set.

This game ranks a 6 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 7 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

Rarity and Popularity independently are not necessarily indications of value. [More Information]

Flyers

Technical

Pinouts may be similar to Turkey Shoot and Blaster.

The hardware was a modified third-generation Willams motherboard with two distinct video planes, each with a palette of 16 colors. This was the first video game with 32 simultaneous colors on screen.

The back-screen consisted of a mosaic of tiles rendered in hardware from an image-to-mapping circuit that fed a DMA chip. These background mosaic tiles formed the islands, the water and the sky.

The fore-screen consisted of a standard bitmapped video screen and this is where all of the characters are rendered through the foreground DMA chip.

Manuals

Instruction Manual - Mystic Marathon Manual — **Instruction Manual**
(20 pages, 1.3 MB File)

Foto-Finder® (Books)

The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 180; Color photo Price guide: No
Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 180; Color photo

Additional References (logged in members often see more)

3D Model (External): Dedicated (cf55be7be207012415000ab5e56184f5)

eBay Listings

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