A party of adventurers in what appears to be a medieval fantasy world called Varn is looking for an entrance to the highly coveted Inner Sanctum. Before long the heroes realize that one of the four kings that rule the countries of Varn is in fact an impostor, a creature from outer space. Their task is to find the real king and ultimately stop the mysterious space traveler, revealing the truth about the world's origin in the process.

The Secret of the Inner Sanctum is a role-playing game and the first installment in the Might and Magic series. Core gameplay concept is similar to that of Wizardry games, though the game does not focus solely on dungeon crawling and features overworld areas and towns that can be physically navigated. In this way the game resembles The Bard's Tale, though it has a significantly larger playing environment with several towns. The entire game is viewed from first-person perspective, and the game environment consists of maze-like passages made with pseudo-3D graphics.

In the beginning of the game, the player creates a party of six adventurers. There are six classes to choose from: knight, robber, sorcerer, cleric, paladin, and archer. Each character has six main attributes: might, endurance, accuracy, personality, intelligence, and luck, with each class requires proficiency in a specific attribute for effective functioning. There are also five races to choose from: humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and half-orcs.

As in most RPGs, the gameplay revolves around exploring the game world and leveling up to be able to proceed to the story-advancing challenges. The party starts in a particularly weak state, equipped with only clubs and having no money. The player is free to explore most of the game's locations in any order, and there are few hints as to what needs to be done to advance the plot. Turn-based battles against randomly appearing enemies typically take place against a group of monsters more or less equal in size to the player-controlled party, but enemy reinforcements can appear once their comrades have been slain. It is also possible to try and bribe enemies or surrender to them before entering combat.

The game has no auto-mapping feature of any kind and it is only possible to save the player's progress at inns located in towns.

The TurboGrafx CD version of this game has significant differences.

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Screenshots

Might and Magic: Book One - Secret of the Inner Sanctum DOS A statue?? Where?

Might and Magic: Book One - Secret of the Inner Sanctum DOS Main menu

Might and Magic: Book One - Secret of the Inner Sanctum DOS Exciting text combat!!!

Might and Magic: Book One - Secret of the Inner Sanctum Macintosh You can train party members to level up your party members

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Promo Images

Might and Magic: Book One - Secret of the Inner Sanctum Magazine Advertisement Page 89

Might and Magic: Book One - Secret of the Inner Sanctum Magazine Advertisement

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Alternate Titles

"魔法門" -- Traditional Chinese spelling
"Меч и Магия" -- Russian spelling
"Mech i Magija" -- Russian title

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Part of the Following Groups

User Reviews

Great game design -- highly difficult, but extremely rewarding	DOS	General Error (4374)
Insanely difficult, but good	DOS	Salim Farhat (68)
An excellent and often forgotten start to this long running series.	DOS	woods01 (163)
Good but why bother.....	DOS	cimerians (52)

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Critic Reviews

64'er	Commodore 64	Feb, 1989	14 out of 15	93
ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)	Commodore 64	May, 1988	825 out of 1000	82
ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)	DOS	May, 1988	825 out of 1000	82
Retro Archives	Apple II	Mar 28, 2020	15.5 out of 20	78
Retro Archives	DOS	Mar 28, 2020	15.5 out of 20	78
Retro Archives	Commodore 64	Mar 28, 2020	15 out of 20	75
Power Play	Commodore 64	Jul, 1988	6 out of 10	60
Joker Verlag präsentiert: Sonderheft	DOS	1992	54 out of 100	54
ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)	Commodore 64	Jun, 1989	441 out of 1000	44
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	Apple II	Apr, 1987	Unscored	Unscored

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Trivia

Awards

Computer Gaming World
- August 1988 (Issue #50) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
- November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #23 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list

Information also contributed by PCGamer77

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Related Web Sites

Commodore 64 Boxed Sets (For C64: game packaging digitalisations. Include box, manual, brochure, additional material.)
DOSBox, an x86 emulator with DOS (Compatibility statistics page between DOSBox versions and the original game.)
Fander Treespook`s Grove of Might & Magic (MM1 Section) (A collection of maps, quests, spells and monsters from the Land of Varn.)
Lemon 64 (For Commodore 64: game entry database; advertisement; magazine reviews; music; documentation; cover art; additional material.)
Macintosh Garden, an abandonware games archive (For Macintosh: reviews; game packaging; downloadable releases; manual; screenshots; additional material.)
MSX Generation (For MSX: game database entry; game packaging; manuals; additional material.)
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Encyclopaedic entry for combined platforms.)