Wizball - Finally............................
Every Christmas, I fire up Wizball as it's tinkly tunes remind me of Christmas's past and I remember the first xmas morning that I got this game...
However, one thing also bugged me...People on here and other websites, magazines, etc. kept going on about how it was one of the best games ever and reallly fun to play. Me? I was stuck bouncing around like a loon wondering how to use the power-ups before uncontrollably smacking into an alien...I had got the Hit-Squad version, with rather vague instructions...
And then, mucking about with it the other day, I waggled the joystick....suddenly it was much easier to control...I collected another power-up and waggled again! Anti-Grav!!
I have now spent the last few days getting to grips with the game and enjoying it on a totally new level! Admittedly, I feel like the stupidest numpty ever...but it all made me wonder....
Has anybody else played any games for years, not really knowing how to play them proper-like, then suddenly discovering how to do stuff making the game infinitely better?????
However, one thing also bugged me...People on here and other websites, magazines, etc. kept going on about how it was one of the best games ever and reallly fun to play. Me? I was stuck bouncing around like a loon wondering how to use the power-ups before uncontrollably smacking into an alien...I had got the Hit-Squad version, with rather vague instructions...
And then, mucking about with it the other day, I waggled the joystick....suddenly it was much easier to control...I collected another power-up and waggled again! Anti-Grav!!
I have now spent the last few days getting to grips with the game and enjoying it on a totally new level! Admittedly, I feel like the stupidest numpty ever...but it all made me wonder....
Has anybody else played any games for years, not really knowing how to play them proper-like, then suddenly discovering how to do stuff making the game infinitely better?????
Post edited by deadpan666 on
Comments
I do not recall any other game at the moment than Wizball, which I still do not understand. :smile: I also just randomly bounce around and then get myself killed.
Perhaps I should look at the instructions.....??
Necros.
I remember playing The Getaway on PS2 , not realising you could auto-target , or recover health simply by doing nothing. How many hours I spent on the early missions , carefully taking my time to aim and fire my shots I dread to think!
I agree some to this, I have now tried the game again knowing how to activate the powerups (which actually does not seems to be in the manual) it was a lot more fun of course. Still it is possible to lose all your lives in the begining by jumping into aliens which is impossible to avoid..
Agreed with Wizkid , it truly is one of the best games ever
On a related note I had a go at Ant Attack again for the first time in years using the hacked version with sensible key placements and discovered that it was actually a nice puzzle game rather than a chance to knot your fingers whilst 'bitten by an ant' appears on the screen.
I can now complete Ant Attack and found it very satisfying doing so after so many years.
enjoy!
November 19th 1988 probably around 9 or 10 at night :D
I was crap at it but I stuck with it for a while, everyone I knew who had a C64 used to say how much better their version was. I'm not bothered though, I didn't really like the Speccy version that much either.
I'll be honest though I've played worse :D
ST version for me as well, I liked the title music enough to sample it and use it as a ringtone.
How many 'happy faces' do i have to collect to have control of my character ? Is it 1 or 2 ?
Also when i have one or two of these how to i then 'select' it ? I'm on kempston, i'm pressing every key on the keyboard and nothing seemed to select them
Frustrating !
One to be able to control the ball in mid-air, and one more to stop bouncing I think.
From the first post in the thread: :-)
Using the keyboard I press left and right somewhat hysterical and it works too!
Yep played it again now, got the first icon and activated it twice and now its a whole new game ! All these years and only just found this out !
The cat, is that the smaller green ball?
Yeah, that's the one, :D
Ok! :) When I played it yesterday I noticed that after I had collected some certain amount of colour I saw a screen of a wizard of a cat. Is this the very same cat?
To sum up:
The aim of the game is to fill the three (or four, I forget, and I don't have the game to hand here at work) cauldrons with colour.
The first stage of the first level is just simply collecting powerups, as the enemies don't move. Make sure you get double anti-grav and the catellite (cool name) before the main enemies appear (they move). Control the catellite by holding fire, and using the direction keys. Catellite can kill things by running into them, but he only has limited hitpoints, so be careful.
After a while, a wave of coloured blobs appear. Shoot them, and droplets of colour fall. Run your catellite into those, and the cauldron of the corresponding colour will slowly fill up. When it's full, the screen with the Wizard and the cat appears and from there you can select a permanent power-up - one that will always be active from then on.
Each colour affects a different level, accessed by dropping through the holes/pipes you find dotted around. Fill all the cauldrons to finish the game.
Hope that helps!
D.
Three cauldrons, they're red, green and blue.
The cat's name is Nifta.
That's stalled for the time being, as I have a lot to learn about Super VGA access from assembly. Rest assured that it is still being worked on.
Co-incidentally, BASin is about to get a major update - hopefully soon, if I can get my finger out and finish the image import dialog.
D.
And I am looking forward to the update!
To weedle out the thickies who didn't read instructions! :p
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I must admit I did not own the original for this game, but the instructions does not actually tell you how to active the powerups. :-)
ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/games-info/w/Wizball.txt
That doesn't actually appear to be the instruction manual, or at least not the fold-out one that came shipped with the C64 version... in that it says "wiggling the joystick from left to right selects the feature represented on the glowing icon at the top of the screen".
Still find it weird i have to waggle left/right like anything, only game i know like that. Would have just been better to have a key you could define or use !