Game 66: Wizard Wars (1988)

It's important not to mix up Wizard Wars, a 1988 game from Paragon, with Wizard Warz, that horrible 1987 quasi-RPG that I played in January. It's also important not to confuse it with the browser-based Wizard Wars (2002). As far as I can tell, the Wizard Wars we're dealing with here has virtually no love online: no walkthroughs, no MobyGames reviews, no fan sites--and, unfortunately, no manual. So, if I can figure things out, my blog can be the authoritative online presence for Wizard Wars.

The game was produced by the same company that made the completely bizarre Alien Fires: 2199 A.D. (1987), which I played just over a year ago, only to scram as soon as my six-hour minimum was up. They later went on to make MegaTraveller, so not all of their games were doomed to obscurity.

As I said, I can't find a manual for Wizard Wars, so I don't know whether the opening sections are representative of the entire game, or if a more interesting world opens up later. It's rather hard to believe that a commercial publisher released a putative CRPG with such limited gameplay as I've been experiencing.

First off, there's no character creation. You play as Temeres the Wizard, on a quest to defeat the evil wizard Aldorin and do something regarding a white unicorn and a black unicorn. You begin with 100 points each of wisdom, health, and "s.c.e.," which I'm guessing is "spell casting energy" or something. Its maximum goes up as I defeat enemies but depletes as I cast spells in combat.

The limited character screen.

  

It appears that the realm of Wizard Wars consists of three "dimensions," only one of which is explorable at the outset. Each dimension consists of a number of geographic "territories" (the first has 30). You tell the game which territory you want to visit, and it gives you a bit of a description of what you might expect to find there.

Deciding where to take my next trip.

   

URBANIA: The ruins of a once-proud ancient civilization dominate Urbania, located in the center of the first dimension. The crumbling remnants of a once-sprawling ancient metropolis litter the Urbanian landscape. A tribe of nomadic elves inhabit the ruins. Impervious to magic, the elves can be extremely loyal allies or deadly enemies, so be wise in your dealing with them.

Sounds good so far, and I rather expected that upon arriving in a place like Urbania, the game would open up and I could explore it. Alas, this is not the case. Upon arrival in each territory, you have five options: Search for an item (which always takes you to a cave), search for inhabitants (which always takes you to a castle), use an item, return an item, and return to the map. It appears that both searches occasionally produce random results.




Sometimes I will find nothing; other times I will find treasure or inhabitants, even when revisiting the same territory. Treasures have included potions (the only other way to heal is a slow one hit point per combat round) and a gemstone that absorbs damage.

At last, the sidewalks of my kingdom will be safe to traverse in winter.

When you encounter another creature, you sometimes have the option to "reason" with it, which hasn't worked for me yet...




...but presumably leads to dialogue in some encounters. Otherwise, you attack. The attack screen offers the options to flee, cast a spell, use an item, or drink a potion.




Temeres starts off with no items or potions, and only one spell--lightning bolt--so options at the outset are fairly limited. The process of attacking and watching the enemy attack (there's no animation, just screen messages) is slow and boring. So far, the combat hasn't been very difficult; sometimes the enemies just stop attacking. This is going to be a short posting, so to compensate, here are a whole slew of enemies attacking me and missing:




As you can see, the graphics aren't awful, although the game does use the same monster graphics for multiple monsters.

The vivid descriptions of each territory prior to the visit are intriguing, which makes it all the more disappointing when you arrive and find the same two screens, with no encounters that have anything to do with the story. And there aren't many CRPGs that don't allow you to move. I can think of a couple others--Beyond Zork, Braminar--but both of those were fundamentally text games with CRPG elements.

There's not much else to tell about it. My plan is to work methodically through the territories, searching for items and inhabitants, until I win the game, reach my six hours, or encounter something more interesting. If anyone has any insight into this game--like why it was made--I'd love to hear it. I don't expect any particular appreciation or anything, but I could be playing Skyrim instead of this.