Hello all! As has been hinted, Mantra has in fact returned. It is now available for Mac OS X and Windows, and is as identical to the original version as was humanly possible. Here is a story of how this new version came to be:
Sometime in the late 90′s or early 2000′s (who can keep track of such things), the Syzygy Cult made a website with a forum. In September of 2005, Christopher O’Neill, a loyal fan of the original game, found the site, created an account, noticed an overall lack of activity, and continued on his way. However, much to his surprise, he soon received an email from none other than Ben Birney himself! He proposed the idea of collaborating on a sequel, and Chris jumped at the opportunity. After some discussion with the other members, it was decided that there was not enough time or manpower to create a whole new game, but that it might be possible to recode Mantra to work for Mac OS X using the old code as a template. Chris, being the sly programmer he was, rewrote the game using the Allegro Game Programming Library, so that Windows users could also enjoy the game. Some 5 years later, and after many starts and stops in progress, the game was finally ready for release. It was released for beta testing in December 2009, and released soon thereafter. Now, longtime fans and newbies alike could enjoy Mantra once again.
I hope it brings you all as much nostalgia as it has brought me. Here is a link to the sourceforge page where both versions can be downloaded.
Chris – thank you for all your hard work on rebuilding Mantra for modern computers. You put in a ton of hard hours on this project, owned it, and made it real. We are all deeply grateful, and I hope some folks out there that enjoy Mantra will get a kick out of this blast from the past.
My life is now complete. You guys have no idea how much this game contributed to my childhood, and I thank you for that.
come to think of it, it is amazing that all i see from people who played it back then is that they loved it..such a simple game… but it really did well in emotionally bonding with the player and i have no idea how the hell you guys did it… really, get a team and make a new game..brand new…cause you guys really have what it takes…your careers can act as funding.. plz.. you all know its what you want to do!
(Birney as admin) Ben French, I wish it were that easy! Every year or so (seriously) we discuss “getting the band back together” to do another game… and every year we look at our careers and schedules and families, and quietly drop the subject.
I sure don’t know what made Mantra so viscerally enjoyable to so many people (which partly explains why Mantra II wasn’t nearly as good), but I am incredibly pleased that it did so well. I don’t know that we could recreate that. When you make something wonderful by mistake, it can be hard to make the same kind of wonderful a second time. (Witness the Star Wars prequels.)
Once again, Chris deserves a big shout-out for making this revival happen.
Oh my god. This game is literally my childhood in virtual form. I played this for HOURS UPON HOURS. Weeks! I went looking for the soundtrack (which I vaguely remembered acquiring at one point) only to find the ENTIRE GAME! You have officially made my month. <3
~Duk
well…. next time you consider it… just do it… if it gets nowhere… fine..you tried…also, find outside help… there are so many skilled people out there nowadays just waiting for an opportunity to pop up
i was going to get into game developing.. but i couldnt….. it wasnt practical for how my life is 
… i have always loved music.. so now i make music and i work as a heavy duty sound techie… my biggest task is tomorrow :O …small hall audience… but its being satellite transmitted to around 30,000 people !!!!! ..so.. you know… no pressure XD but i wish you good luck with whatever you do..and if you do make a game.. i will promote it as much as i can……rake in some new fans 
HELP! I can’t figure out a way to kill either that silver pig-looking (dinosaur?), or–if I have to go to the other castle–that ghost that’s on the bridge that won’t let me pass to get the treasure chest!!
I remember playing this as a kid, and I must have had a walk through guide for moments like this; I can’t remember. All I know is: A) I’M SO HAPPY I CAN PLAY THIS AGAIN! but B) I CAN’T PLAY BECAUSE I’M STUCK!
HALP!
Hey Spencer,
Glad to hear you like the game! With any luck, more such things will be in the works.
That is the correct dungeon to enter first, but that pig boss is strong. You will need the Iron Sword (which I believe is also in that dungeon), and a little bit of luck. The best thing to do is get a few potions, go in with full life, and stab relentlessly until you kill it. The good news is, once you kill him, nothing stands between you and the first mantra, so even if your life is very low, your chance of dying in that dungeon is minimal.
A walkthrough is something I hadn’t considered, though I like the idea. The game has a “correct” path in terms of difficulty, but it is not always obvious what that is, and going the wrong way almost certainly leads to death, or at the very least frustration.
Keep at it, young Saric, and victory shall be yours!
I’d love to say some very smart and awesome praise for this, alas i’m too busy making weird noises of sheer happiness. I think you brought meaning back to my boring and busy 16 year old’s life
It’s amazing that you brought Mantra back to the modern Mac system! I wish more developers did that, for example the team that made Realmz…
Hi, so the spider boss didn’t drop a key. He dropped SOMETHING… right after I killed him, I ran over his corpse, and I heard the “pick up bag of loot” sound. I assumed that’d be a key, but I have no key. What do I do now?
Okay, so get this – I hacked my save file and figured out the 16 bit field for the key count. Turns out that somehow, instead of increasing my key count from 0 to 1, the game decreased my key count and set the field to 0xFFFF, which the game probably interpreted as -1. I had negative 1 key. I think the spider boss drops a negative key, you guys. You might want to fix that someday. In the meantime, if anybody else has this problem on Mac OS X, do this: Download a program called HexEdit. Now right-click Mantra and choose Show Package Contents, open Resources, then drag the Saved.dat file to HexEdit. Look for your save slot (the slot names are in clear text on the right side). Click the insertion point at the END of your slot name (so for Slot 4, click right after the 4), and drag down until the “Sel:” information in the top bar of the HexEdit window reads something like “$00000725:00000986 / $00000261″. Ignore the first two numbers; the $00000261 is the important part. Make SURE it says $00000261, that’s how you know you dragged to the correct location. Now, where your big selection ENDS is the BEGINNING of the key count field. If the two bytes AFTER the END of the selection say 0001, you have 1 key. If it says 0000, you have zero keys. If it says FFFF, you have negative 1 key, and are a victim of the negative key bug. Change it to whatever value you want… I changed mine to 007F, so 127 keys, just to be safe, LOL. Make sure you replace exactly two bytes, because if you accidentally only do one byte, or three bytes, or any other length, then you will ruin your Saved.dat file. Keep a copy of the original Saved.dat file elsewhere before doing any of this just in case you screw it up. Good luck all.
Hellena and Konrad: Glad to hear you enjoyed Mantra. It brings me indescribable nostalgia as well.
Jeff: I have not encountered this issue, but I will look into it. I sent an email to the address you specified, we can continue discussion of the issue there. Regarding the ending, I agree it leaves a bit to be desired, but then again, so do most games of this nature. The emphasis was on gameplay, not storyline, and the rest of the game reflects this as well. If you would like to write a better epilogue, I would be more than happy to add it to the end of the game.