Wizadore

Wizadore is a video game developed by Imagine Software and released on cassette tape for the BBC Micro home computer in 1985. It was developed by Chris Roberts, then aged 16. Wizadore was his first commercially sold game outside of magazines.

Plot

The player's character is a mage whose grandfather created a sword to kill Smaun, an evil dragon, but which has been broken into three parts that must be collected in order to kill the dragon.

Gameplay

Wizadore is a simple side scrolling platformer game with a three item inventory. Players need jump across gaps and climb ladders to collect various weapons and scrolls to defeat guards armed with axes and swords and soldiers riding flying creatures that drop weapons. To advance through the game, players need to juggle their inventory carefully as certain weapons only kill certain types of enemy. Archers remain invulnerable and the player needs to jump over their arrows. The timing of jumps was critical and needed to be almost pixel perfect to avoid dying. The combination of the climb and jump key added a level of difficulty.

Trivia

• Chris Roberts was trying to sell "Wizadore" to Ultimate Play The Game without much success due to the platform, but Martin Galway who was working at Ocean Software mentioned it and Ocean decided to pick it up.
• Wizadore offered entry into several monthly draws for £100 for anyone who could complete it. The whole game was a series of cryptic clues, meant to give the time, date and location of somewhere to be to claim the one off prize. This was so obscure that it was years before anyone won it.

External Links

• Wizadore - BBC Longplay