Wizard
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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Wizard is a classic platformer and was developed at the same time as Jumpman. Wizard resembles Jumpan, e.g. in the possibility to set the game speed by pressing a key during the loading of a level or the elements in the levels. 

What Wizard silhouettes against Jumpman are on the one hand the further elements as the treasures, the key and the keyhole, the diversity of the enemies and on the other hand the ability of the pawn to actively defend itself - that is with magic spells. 

The aim of each level is to collect the key and after that to leave the level over the keyhole. The longer one is in the level, the less bonus will you get at the end of this level. In the level only the treasures get you points. 

Wizard needs to fight through altogether 40 levels, each 10 levels per difficulty grade. 

The game also contains a level editor, with which you can change or create levels and save them on disk. 

 Design 

There is no music in this game, but almost everything creates a sound effect. So e.g. there is a sound during the building up of the stones, the ladders, ropes, keys and keyhole. During playing alomost everything that Wizard touches makes a funny sound: when collecting treasures, climbing ropes, using letters, collecting keys and disappearing through the keyhole. The levels are multi-coloured, as the colours of the different elements differ from level to level. The colours can be chosen when creating a level in the editor. Apart from the Wizard himself, there are many elements that are animated. The enemies and also elevators move in the frame that has been assigned to them, fire flickers to and fro, the treasures flash in all colours. If Wizard runs into a peril, he will crash in a nice animation with a sound effect that may raise a smile in some people's faces. And if you look very close while casting a spell, you can see that Wizard makes a small movement with both hands. 

Before the game starts

On the starting screen you choose by joystick up/down, whether you want to see the demo (Demonstration), play (Play the Game) or use the editor (Construction). A countdown is running and starts after finishing the option that is currently chosen. Default is this the demonstration mode. After choosing the option „Play the Game“ you get to the overview to choose the starting level: 
 Beginner (level 1-10, bright green stone colour) 
 Intermediate (level 11-20, blue stone colour) 
 Advanced (level 21 – 30, grey stone colour) 
 Expert (level 31-40, rosy stone colour) 
 Customized (plays the own created levels) 
 Mystery (the 40 levels are played in a random order) 

After that you choose by joystick up/down the number of players and after pressing the fire button the first level is already loaded. The game speed is chosen by pressing one of the number keys during loading. 

In the game

 – Wizard moves left and right on the floor, if he encounters ladders or ropes he will go up or down. 
 on solid ground – Wizard ducks 
 – Wizard jumps in the desired direction. Here you need to mind that the landing must not be too far from the ground, as otherwise the wizard will crash. 
Space  – Release magic spells, which do not need a direction input 
 – Release magic spells by joystick - if the spell is directed, it will go into the direction that the wizard just walked into 
Space  +  – Release magic spells, with which a shot is triggered, in the corresponding direction 

 In the lower part of the screen for each level the player, the level number, the points, the number of lives, the speed, the bonus bar and the magic spell is displayed. Here the number shows how often the spell can be cast and below that its type in capital letters. The arrow moves with Wizard and shows in what direction the spell will be cast. 

Every 10.000 points you will get a life, after every stage - depending on how you have done - several lives. 

 Elements 	 Stone floor – most of the time it is there permanently, but can also flash or get invisible, recolour, disappear or reappear when picking up a treasure. 
	 Stairs – you can use it to overcome heights, but it can also happen that it keeps changing to a slope. 
	 Ladder – it can also get holes, get invisible, disappear or appear 
	 Rope – same as with the ladders 
	 Arrows – they teleport the Wizard into the direction that they point into. Most of the time they are surrounded by an arc. During teleporting Wizard pervades walls and is invulnerable. In this state he can be steered. 
	 Start – sets Wizard nack to his starting points 
	 Skull – you should not touch it, otherwise Wizard crashes 
	 Fire – it flickers and must absolutely be avoided. Wizard can jump over it but he cannot destroy it with one of his magic spells. 
	 Treasures – they sparkle and get you 50 – 750 points. If you collect them, they can also call up unexpected reactions... 
	 Key – you need to collect it to leave the level through the keyhole. At the same time you get a certain number of casts for the spell that is available in that level 
	 Keyhole – you need to go through it to get to the next level 
	 Barrier – you can only walk on it when it is closed 
	 Door – correct timing is necessary to get through it without harm 
	 Elevator – It can go horizontally, vertically or diagonally. To ride, just jump on it and to go off just jump from it onto solid ground. 

 Enemies 

There are 3 types: 
 Some monsters and especially the slime use the floor and move more ore less oriented at the position of the Wizard. They can use ladders but not ropes. If you take the floor under your feet they will dissolve. 
 Other monsters fly in the air and also move in orientation to the position and movement of the wizard. They can move behind all elements. 
 Enemies as arrows, stones and small ice balls after the example from Jumpman fly vertically and horizontally in straight lines. Here they are strongly geared to the position of the wizard. If the wizard walks close to the border of the screen no danger will com from this side - but instead from the other side. 

 Magic spells 
None – in some levels there is no spell available 
Invisibility – The wizard gets invisible (black) and is also for the player hard to see. Touching the enemies and falling from platforms (possible with Invisibility) weakens the spell, touching skulls are still deadly. 
Feather Fall – The wizard moves downwards until the next platform and is invulnerable during this movement. This spell can still be used when you have already crashed. 
Haste – The complete level is accelerated. 
Slow - The wizard and the enemies move slower. 
Fireball, Enchantment, Magic Missile, Disintegrate - a simple shot; the joystick decides the direction in which the shot will go. 
Freeze – a shot that stops the enemy for a short time when being touched by it – the enemies can be touched during this time without peril. 
Teleport – The wizard teleports himself back to the starting position or respectively the last teleport position. During this time he is invulnerable and can also use this spell to suspend a crash. 
Levitation – The wizard hovers upwards to the next platform. During this time he is invulnerable and he can use this spell to suspend a crash. 

 Editor 

The editor is controlled over the keyboard and takes getting used to. The F-keys are mainly used. The colour of a level is determined by the extended character set of the C64. 

 Solution 

Some Tips: 
 You can also slide down on the stilts of ladders: just stand on the appropriate place and jump once, which e.g. is needed in the level Fire Alarm. 
 When you have played through all levels the game goes into the "Mystery“ mode. Maybe there are more levels on the disk, which can be played in the Customized mode. 
 Not all monsters are enemies, e.g. the purple cat in Wizard's Pet can be touched. 
 In the level Simon says you need to - according to the known game - collect the type of treasure that Simon announces. If a treasure type is displayed that Simon has not announced, you'd better avoid it. 
 When you teleport yourself you cannot land on a piece of floor where a rope starts or which is craggy. 
 You can land out of a jump on ropes and ladders and jump from any place on them onto another place. 
 The level name most of the time gives away what expects you. 
 The level "Bats in the Belfry" belongs to the levels, where you need to collect a certain treasure to finish it. One of the treasures opens a wall which hinders you to land directly in the keyhole. So you first teleport yourself up to the key and on the way collect the treasure. Then you cast yourself back to the starting point and teleport yourself over the arrow onto the platform below the keyhole to then jump into it.

Development history

Wizard was a product of the Construction Set era of 8-bit home computer games started by Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set. The game was created contemporaneously with the Epyx release Jumpman. Stephen Leudder stated that it was a coincidence, and that he felt Wizard could have been more successful if Jumpman had not been released first. There are many notable similarities between Jumpman and Wizard. Both share a platform game format with a sequence of differently-configured single-screen levels to complete. However, while the object in Jumpman is to collect each "bomb" on the level, the object in Wizard is to collect a key and take it to a lock. The game also featured surprises that would be triggered by collecting bonus items in each level.

Wizard was groundbreaking in many ways; it included a construction kit that allows creation and play of user-created levels. However, the kit lacked the ability to add any special treasure-collection effects to the levels, as they were implemented by hard-coding their effects directly into the game program.

Ultimate Wizard

Craig Smith and Aaron Hightower teamed up to make an improved construction set in their homes in North Richland Hills, Texas. They communicated with Sean and Stephen to understand the memory layout for the levels and then set out to create an advanced construction set better than the one included with the original game. The original set had remnants in its code alluding to features that had been disabled, likely due to their instability or lack of documentation.

PP&S took the code from Craig and Aaron, and released an expansion pack. The expansion pack included 50 new levels from a competition held by the company specifically for the expansion pack. None of the new levels had any advanced features because of the limitations of the original construction set. Electronic Arts, including Paul Reiche III, used the Construction set created by Aaron and Craig to create a whole new set of levels. The Construction Set made by Craig and Aaron was also included by EA, as were the levels from the original game and from the expansion pack.

Innovative Features

Wizard had some very innovative features compared to other platform games of the time. For one, unlike Jumpman, it had a construction set. In addition, Wizard also had many spells that could be utilized. The sound was notably better as well, this due to Sean and Stephen's previous experience in sound creation outside of the video game field.


http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/Wizard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_(1983_video_game)
