Spirit of Excalibur is a 1990 role-playing game developed by Synergistic Software and published by Virgin Mastertronic for MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore CDTV, Apple IIGS and Macintosh. The player controls a host of characters with the goal of uniting Sub-Roman Britain under a single king and defending the kingdom. The game was followed by the sequel Vengeance of Excalibur in 1991. Gameplay The geographical setting for Spirit of Excalibur is a depiction of actual southern England with its cities, castles, villages, churches and other locations scattered throughout the land. The player starts by controlling a single character, Lord Constantine III of Britain, but as the game proceeds he will be able to control many other knights and the armies they lead, including King Arthur's best friend and magician Merlin. All action takes place at two different levels: a so-called "map level" and a "scene level". As its name implies, the "map level" shows a multi-screen overview map of Britain, which the player can explore by scrolling. The computer- and player-controlled characters move across the map from place to place and are usually marked by a shield icon with the knight or character's own insignia. To solve the puzzles and mysteries which allow him to proceed through the game, the player must visit key locations and interact with various characters, sometimes enlisting their help and sometimes fighting them. These types of action take place at the "scene level". When two different groups meet, the player is shown a scene depicting a side view of all characters present at that location. Dialogs, individual combat, exchanges of objects, and requests for information all take place at the scene level. During the fights on this level, one of the player controlled characters combats one of the enemies. The fight ends when all the elements of a group are dead or have withdrawn. The player can choose whether to activate an automatic control or fight manually and he can also have any of his characters use an object or a magician cast a spell. Individual combat ensues between characters who are not supported by an army, but upon a meeting between two hostile armies a specific combat screen opens. If the player has control over one of the two sides, he can issue commands to his units, for example ordering a group of soldiers to charge the enemy, some knights to flank the adversary