Magic (game terminology)

A light blue bar, 39% of which is filled with a darker shade of blue
A mana bar or magic bar, used to keep track of a character's magic points (MP) in a video game

Magic or mana is an attribute assigned to characters within a role-playing or video game that indicates their power to use special magical abilities or "spells". Magic is usually measured in magic points or mana points, shortened as MP. Different abilities will use up different amounts of MP.[1] When the MP of a character reaches zero, the character will not be able to use special abilities until some of their MP is recovered.[2]

Much like health, magic might be displayed as a numeric value, such as "50/100". Here, the first number indicates the current amount of MP a character has whereas the second number indicates the character's maximum MP. In video games, magic can also be displayed visually, such as with a gauge that empties itself as a character uses their abilities.[3][self-published source?]

  1. ^ "The History of Mana: How an Austronesian Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic", June 17, 2014, Alex Golub, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
  2. ^ Perry, Jim (2009-06-23). RPG Programming with XNA Game Studio 3.0. Jones & Bartlett Learning. p. 404. ISBN 978-1449631505. Retrieved 2014-12-09.
  3. ^ Orland, Kyle; Thomas, David; Steinberg, Scott Matthew (2007). The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual. Lulu.com. p. 51. ISBN 978-1430313052. Retrieved 2014-12-24.[self-published source]