Wizball Remake

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: November 3rd, 2007

Graham Goring, renown remaker and host of The Arsecast, has finally finished possibly the last remake of his career. A remake of the C64 game Wizball!

You can expect Graham’s usual high level of polish and even higher level of hardware accelerated effects. Seriously, this man’s love of particles borders on criminal.

The release of Wizball (alledgedly) marks the end of Graham’s remaking career, but also the beginning of his rise to indie gaming superstardom. I know he’s already got some rad projects lined up… but I’m still anxious to hear what he announces. Yay Graham!

Download the remake here.

UPDATE: A new version has been uploaded that fixes some issues with the first release.

Posted in Action, Highly Recommended, Remakes, Windows | Tags: GrahamGoring

http://www.tscreative.net BMcC

Really, look at that Get Ready screen. Craziness.

…

Congrats on finishing, Graham!
Mischief Maker

I like the ever changing nature of this game where the gameplay changes from a desperate attempt to survive to a shooter to where the Wizball seems to function like a mothership to the cat option thing.

Although could someone please enlighten me as to which pipes lead up and which ones lead down?

One bug I ran into was exiting out of a pipe right on top of a spawning enemy and dying instantly.
DrDerekDoctors

Huh? There shouldn’t be any enemies when you enter a level. They only appear once you move left or right from the position you land in. If this happens a lot, then can you create an empty folder in your wizball subfolder (where all the .dat files are) called “demos” and from then on the game will record your games, so once you get another instance of the problem you can pop over a demo to me and with luck I can replicate it.

Oh, and look for small arrows near the pipes to gauge which direction they’ll take you in. Sometimes they’re above the pipes, sometimes next to them, etc.
nullerator

Looks neat. I remember trying Wizball many times, but I never really got into it. Maybe now is the time?
http://www.tscreative.net BMcC

Now is indeed the time!
Derek

I just wizzed onto my balls!

…

I’m sorry, but someone had to say it. Right? :'(
Derek

Also, looks beautiful and very much looking forward to playing! :3
Optrirominiluikus

This looks like shite. I only played Wizkid, never Wizball, in the early nineties. Not gonna bother with this.
Dominic White

I had forgotten just how weird and/or brutally, unforgivingly hard C64/Speccy era games were. Consider this remake a harsh reminder.

Fun, but I’m utter crap at it. Great atmosphere though. Chilled, yet terrifying at the same time.
Mandrake42

I love this game, one of my fave 64 games of all time.

@Dominic: It is tough, its one of those games where you need to get on a roll with the one life and just keep it going. Ive solved the 64 game with my first life before. But that was years ago and I’m sure my reflexes have dulled a bit since then ;)
raelz

Amazing game. At first I didn’t get it but now I am amazed. Love it :)
raelz

Yeah and anyone can tell me how does the two players mod work?
Cycle

Great game, and great timing. It’s going to be one of my FREEWARE PICKS of the month. Yay!

In two-player, one person is the ball and the other person is the cat. It’s a pretty TIGHT two-player game, as the kids say these days.

The only thing this remake needs is more nudity.
Pita

Cry….. I got /so/ far.

Then lost my last life in a very SILLY mistake.
Cycle

You get distracted by the topless chick, too?
smila

Glad to hear most people are enjoying it. :)
It took a long time to get done but we got there.
Lim-Dul

I don’t like the game – it’s not that the remake isn’t good but when the original Wizzball came out I was 4 years old so I’m probably not the right target audience. =)
raelz

I suck at it, but I love it .P Besides, if I understand correctly there is some topless chick so at least a motivation for me :P
DrDerekDoctors

Just put a pair of new .exe’s on the retrospec website which fix the hiscore issue and the windowed problem for some people.
http://www.tscreative.net BMcC

Huzzah!
MisterX

I didn’t like it much at first, as I don’t know the original at all and the concept seemed rather like “a shmup only a little worse”. But once I get the hang of this colour system and found out where the pipes actually lead to, it got quite addicting. Well, so far I only made it to the “Mount Rushmore” level, as I couldn’t find the pipe leading further upwards, but I’ll surely go on playing tomorrow :D
And of course technically it’s very good. Great music, very suitable sounds and sweet art.

I just apparently got the bug where the remaining enemies, score and menu won’t show up ingame, as far as I experienced it only happening when using 32bit(?) mode. I already got the updated executables (wizballd.exe won’t run because of the missing MSVCRTD.dll).
DrDerekDoctors

Ooh, you can grab MSVCRTD.dll from your friendly local internet, but I’m glad you’re liking it in general. These missing textures really are a bit of a bugger…
Magnumi

I must say that IÂ´m really impressed with this particular remake. It feels just like the original on the C64 but otherwise itÂ´s as if the whole game has timewarped to this present day. An awesome piece of work in every aspect.. ItÂ´s real an shame if this is the last we will here from these developers.. :(
DrDerekDoctors

Hardly the last. You can hear from Smila all the time as he makes a remake every other week (approx) and I’m just moving over to original indie games instead of remakes. I’m fed up of replicating other people’s bizarre game behaviours and want to make me own. :)
MattV

Congrats on finishing this Doctor. Having listened to the Arsecasts (what’s happened to that?) and read lots of your forum posts I’m excited to see what you do next. …hey how about something with glowy vectors?
DrDerekDoctors

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Glowy vectors! Pff!

Actually, the one genre I’d do with glowy vectors would be a platformer, because I’ve never seen one that uses them and it’d be an ice look for a platformer I think.

And the arsecast may well return in some form, it’s just I need to work up a proper head of steam for it.
Zulgaines

Two player mode would be much better if the second player wasn’t forced back the first player for standing still .03 seconds.
http://www.distractionware.com Terry

Hey, Triple D/Double G, did you consider using mouse control for player two? I’m not sure if it would work that well, but it would be an interesting thing to experiment with :)
Swiz

Has anyone seen droplets other than the “normal” ones?
DrDerekDoctors

Zulgaines – Thems how it works on the original, and I wanted above all else to be broadly faithful to the original.

Terry – Interesting, but I suspect it’d make it way too easy for player 2. Although it’d be a nice way for people without joypads to do 2 player. But it ain’t gonna’ happen, really, as I just wanna’ fix bugs at this point.

Swiz – Yes, I have. ;) You will generally get 1 special paintblob in every 7 or 8 waves of paintdrops. Although obviously dying before you meet said wave could get rid of their special paintdrop before you have the chance to see it.
Cycle

I’ve seen quite a few special paintdrops! Then again, I (almost) finished the game on one life. The only good one seems to be the white which gives an extra life. All the other ones did… did TERRIBLE things.

While I’m here, I have a few gripes!

FIRST! I’ve tried getting people to play this game, and have to end up explaining the game to them since the in-game instructions aren’t too helpful for people who didn’t play the game on the C64. They are all like “waggle the joystick wth is this crap wtf”. An extra page of instructions briefly explaining the bare mechanics and fundamentals of the game would help those noobies, but perhaps you don’t care for them! Or perhaps my friends are just idiots, I don’t know. Probably!

SECOND! I can end up playing this game for a couple hours trying to finish it, so a save/resume system would be nice. I have no idea how hard this would be to implement (probably quite tricky) so don’t worry about it if it’s gonna be too much trouble, eh.

THIRD: You sure love your particle effects! They are actually quite distracting in large battles, because often I can’t see bullets heading straight for me in a barrage of explosions, so I’d suggest either toning down the explosions or, a better solution, make the bullets stand out from them more.

APART FROM THESE minor quibbles, top remake!
DrDerekDoctors

FIRST! Yes, they’re eejits. ;) Actually the game is downright hostile but I feel it’s the preserve of FAQs to illuminate how to play. The game is just an anachronism in design terms.

SECOND! It wouldn’t be *too* awful to make, but it would make the game too easy so it ain’t happening I’m afraid. And besides, there’s nothing wrong with playing the same game for a few hours…

THIRD! That’s why there’s a particle density option in the options page. Turn it down to 33% or 66%. :)

Ta’
Stian Grønland

would love some unlimited lives on this one