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.

