Wizkid: The Story of Wizball II

Moby ID: 1836
DOS Specs

Description official description

The Wiz and his cat Nifta have successfully restored colors to the world. Both got married (though most probably not to each other) and begot children: the Wiz had a son, Wizkid, and Nifta had eight kittens. Their peaceful life ended when the evil mouse magician Zark kidnapped the Wiz, Nifta, and all the kittens, imprisoning them in different parts of the world. Wizkid must venture into unknown realms and rescue his father together with the feline family.

Wizkid: The Story of Wizball II is a sequel to Wizball. This game deviates from the original in many ways. The screen does not scroll and Wizkid does not bounce around like his predecessor. The player has full control over Wizkid and his movements. He has to be moved around the screen, bashing into bricks (which come in different shapes and sizes) so that the flying bricks collide with the onscreen enemies. Once the screen is cleared of all the enemies, coins are dropped, which must be picked up quickly before they disappear and the player proceeds to the next screen.

Killing multiple enemies with a single brick releases a bubble that will sometimes offer a nose (to juggle bricks) or teeth (letting Wizkid grab hold of bricks), but more often they turn into colored notes. These must be combined to form tunes, as patterned at the top of the screen. Once the player completes a tune, you are taken to a shop where you can buy items needed to progress to the next stage.

If Wizkid has bashed all the bricks on a screen, but failed to remove all the enemies, the player may be taken to a puzzle screen, where he must solve Crossword 2091 for bonus money. The player has a number of words to put on the screen, but they must all overlap each other and use each other's letters. Each move has a time limit. If the player fails to complete the puzzle he is taken back to the level.

When exiting a shop the player can choose either to exit as a head or a body, which is Wizkid with arms and legs. Assembles in this way, Wizkid is now limited by gravity and can jump around and use onscreen objects such as ringing bells or cranking wells. He may also come across interactive elements which he will need to use with items in his pockets. Most such levels require the player to solve inventory-based puzzles.

Groups +

Screenshots

Credits (DOS version)

4 People

PC Programming by
Visual Design by
Audio Design by
Produced by

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 21 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 24 ratings with 1 reviews)

Bizarre in a good way

The Good
Totally defies being pigeonholed into any set genre. It has elements of platform games, breakout games and arcade adventures whilst bastardising each category expertly. The humour in the way you progress through the game, whilst not everyone likes toilet humour I do. Extremely imaginative way of progressing through the game, level 1 doesn't necessarily lead to level 2, it all depends on what you do.

The fact that you can still do the old disembodied head rolling about stuff is good for fans of the original wizball and so much more.

The Bad
The load times can be pretty long. Some of the puzzles are so obscure that only a diseased mind could solve them.

The Bottom Line
If you have played the original wizball then expect your hero to gain a body and the ability to chuck bricks about the place in the hope of gaining coins. The colouring in the world stuff has been forgotten and good old wiz is now a fully fledged arcade adventurer, although he still has to do a lot of rolling about without his body.

This is post-puberty wizball, gone are his days of messing around with cats in metal satellites, these days he hangs around in lavatories putting coins in contraceptive machines. If that last sentence doesn't make you go out and play this game nothing else will!!

Atari ST · by Neepie Lantern (524) · 2004

Trivia

DOS version

The DOS version of Wizkid displays the current date in the lower left corner of the title screen and writes this date into the executable file itself. Unfortunately, it is not Y2K compliant, so the date always looks strange. (see screenshots on file)

Awards

  • ST Format
    • January 1993 (issue #42) - #5 in '50 finest Atari ST games of all time' list

Analytics

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 1836
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Macintrash.

Antstream added by firefang9212. Atari ST, Amiga added by Martin Smith.

Additional contributors: jeff leyda, Jo ST.

Game added June 29, 2000. Last modified September 22, 2023.