Master of Illusion finds quarters behind Joystiq's ears
Apparently unafraid that the game's secrets would be revealed by the open-air policy, Nintendo let a bunch of game bloggers try out their new magic training game, Master of Illusion. In summary: if you've ever wanted to use your DS to perform shockingly obvious magic tricks in non-obvious ways, then this is, like, the only product on the market for you. If you want to play a game or something, look elsewhere.
Joystiq's Zack Stern explained the game as a set of interactive magic tricks which rely on the included deck of marked cards; the idea is that, once you've determined your friend's card by looking at the marks, you feed that information into your DS surreptitiously (by, for example, drawing a face in a certain way or entering button combinations), allowing the DS to miraculously guess the card. The game also contains some basic lessons about misdirection and other skills involved in magic.
Zack, ironically, wanted to see more training in this DS non-game: "I hope that creative magicians will eventually figure out ways to perform without the handheld. I just wish the game offered that outright, analog goal."
