Wizball

Wizball is a computer game written by Jon Hare and Chris Yates (who together formed the company Sensible Software) and released in 1987 originally for the Commodore 64 and later in the year for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. Versions for the Amiga and Atari ST were also released in the following year. Wizball was also released for PC compatibles (CGA) and the French Thomson MO5 8 bit computer. The music in the Commodore 64 version was composed by Martin Galway, with input from Jon Hare and Chris Yates.

Wizball's more comical sequel, Wizkid, was released in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST and IBM PC.

Gameplay

Wizball is set in the once colourful realms of Wizworld, where the evil Zark has stolen all the colour, making it dull and gray. It is up to Wiz and his cat Nifta to restore it to its former brilliance as Wizball and Catellite.

Wizball is a scrolling shooter inspired by Gradius with an additional collection dynamic. It is a horizontally scrolling game taking place over eight levels, 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 (red, blue, and green) to be collected to complete it. The player, a wizard who has taken the form of a green ball, can navigate between the levels through portals. At first the wizard only has access to the first three levels, but completing levels gains access to further levels. Each level has bouncing spheres of a different colours, and shooting them releases droplets, 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 colours. On later levels, the spheres of paint start shooting bullets, further adding to the challenge.