THE SPECTRUM GAME DATABASE WIZBALL PUBLISHER Ocean AUTHOR Sensible Software YEAR 1987 CATEGORY Arcade DESCRIPTION Wizball is a side-view arcade game. CONTROLS Keyboard, Kempston. The keys are redefinable. INSTRUCTIONS For many years, Wiz and his magical cat lived happily in brightly coloured Wizworld. All was not well however as a malevolent force had discovered the vista and intended to stamp out brilliance once and for all. The evil Zark and his horrible sprites have moved in to eliminate the spectrum and render all landscpes drab and grey. So jump in your transporter and with the help of your faithful servant Catelite, restore Wizworld to its former glory. The landscapes in Wizworld are comprised of three colours each. Your task is to restore the original colours by shooting the Red, Green and Blue colour bubbles and then using Cat to collect the droplets of colour as they fall to the ground. Droplets collected will be stored in the cauldron displayed at the bottom of the screen, until such time as you have enough of each colour to make the target colour displayed in the cauldron on the far bottom right of the screen. In the three levels which have aliens on: one has red, one has green and one has blue. It is therefore necessary to move between the three levels using the tunnels to collect all three colours. To complete a level, you must colour in the whole landscape. After each colour is collected there is a bonus stage. After this, Wiz enters Wiz-Lab and is given a Wiz-Perk by his guardian angel. You may select one weapon or control, which will be magically endowed up on all subsequent Wizballs from birth, or opt for the bonus of 1000 points x Wiz-Level number. When certain aliens are killed they will deposit a green pearl which will remain stationary on the screen. If Wizball passes over this pearl and picks it up the first icon on the top of the screen will glow; this indicates that Wiz has the option to select a feature representated on the icon. If you want to select another feature collect more pearls until the icon you want is glowing. Several icons have two possible functions. The icons are, from left to right: 1) Thrust - Gives Wiz more control over the Wizball and allows him to move it left or right. Antigrav - Gives Wiz total control over the Wizball and stops the bouncing. 2) Beam - Gives Wiz supa-beam weapon. Double - Gives Wiz and cat automatic two-directional firepower. 3) Catellite - Gives Wiz a cat fresh from training college. 4) Blazers - Gives Wiz and Cat super rapid fire blazers. 5) Wiz Spray - Gives Wiz mega spray protection. Cat Spray - Does the same for Cat (but Wiz and Cat cannot have spray at the same time). 6) Smart Bomb - Kills every sprite in sight. 7) Shields - Gives Wiz and Cat shields for a limited period only. SCORES RECEIVED Crash: "An entertaining and playable game". 92% (CRASH #45, October 1987) SEQUELS/PREQUELS A sequel was released, but not on the Spectrum. It was called WizKid, and is pretty good.