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Wizball is a computer game written by Jon Hare and Chris Yates (who together formed the company Sensible Software) and released in 1987 for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. Versions for the Amiga, Atari ST and PC were also released. The music in the Commodore 64 version was composed by Martin Galway. Wizball's more comical sequel, Wizkid, was released in the early 1990s for the Amiga, Atari ST and IBM PC.
GameplayThe theme of Wizball is unique. It is a horizontally-scrolling game, which involves navigating around a landscape and shooting at sprites. However, the aim of the game is to collect droplets of coloured paint to colour the level. Each level starts off as monochromatic, drawn in three shades of grey, and needs three colours to be collected to complete it. The player, a wizard who has taken the form of a green ball, has access to three levels at a time, and can navigate between them through portals. Each level has droplets of a different primary colour which may be collected. At the same time, each level needs a different colour to be added, which can be composed by collecting sufficient quantities of the correct primary colours. The player's sprite itself is not capable of collecting paint droplets, and is initially capable of very limited movement, bouncing up and down at a fixed rate, with the player only controlling a speed of rotation, and thus how fast it will move horizontally after next touching the ground. Collecting green pearls (which appear when some sprites have been shot) gives the player tokens which can be used to "buy" enhancements, such as greater control over movement and improved firepower, and also an additional sprite known as Catellite. Catellite (effectively your wizard's cat) is a spherical sprite which follows the player's sprite, and can also be moved independently by holding down the fire button whilst moving the joystick (which also renders the player's sprite uncontrollable). Only Catellite is capable of collecting paint droplets; the player has to use it to do so. In the two-player mode, Catellite is controlled by the second player. More recently in 2007, the game's 20th anniversary year, a remake for Windows and MacOS operating systems has been produced by Graham Goring. The gameplay of the remake is based on the c64 version but contains update graphics, music and sound effects.
VersionsThe Commodore 64 version is the original. The Atari ST and Amiga versions were ported by other programming teams. The Amiga and Atari ST versions contained a serious bug: only one wave of enemies is active on the landscape at a time, rather than several as in the C64 version.
SequelsIn 1992 Sensible Software developed a sequel Wizkid which was released by Ocean Software. Although the story in Wizkid continues directly from Wizball, the actual games are only superficially related to each other.
NotesWizball continued a thread common in Sensible Software games of introducing hidden obscenity in apparently-justified gaming terms. In Wizball, one of the power-ups available for purchase is an eight-way firing gun called the "Wiz spray". When purchased, this gun becomes available to the Catellite as well - and is referred to as the "cat spray". Only one of these weapons can be held at any one time; Wiz and Cat can't have the spray simultaneously.
Critical AcclaimThe game won a Sizzler award in the July 1987 issue of ZZAP!64 magazine, and later went on to be crowned its Game of the Decade.
References
External links- Wizball at MobyGames
- Wizball at Lemon 64
- Wizball at World of Spectrum
- Wizball at CPC Zone
- Wizball at Lemon Amiga
- Wizball at Atari Legends
- Wizball Remake - Windows PC & Macintosh
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