 |
| Trying the Atari ST version this time. |
Wizard Warz
United Kingdom
Canvas (developer); GO! (publisher)
Released in 1987 for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS; 1988 for ZX Spectrum
Date Started: 27 January 2011
Date Finished: 12 June 2019
Total Hours: 10
Difficulty: Hard (4/5)
Final Rating: 15
Ranking at time of posting:35/343 (10%)
Difficulty: Hard (4/5)
Final Rating: 15
Ranking at time of posting:35/343 (10%)
By now, I've made no secret that I occasionally scan my list of played games, filter by those with "N" in the "Won?" column, and look for the ones I can quickly turn around. I did that with Journey a few weeks ago. Now I'm doing it again with Wizard Warz, an unsatisfying little action RPG that I played and lost in 2011. It's always a good idea to revisit games I played during that first year anyway. I was often playing the worst version (because of my DOS-only rule), and I didn't care anything about developers, publishers, or countries of origin. I thus missed a lot that was interesting about some of those games, and there is quite a bit that's interesting about Wizard Warz.
Wizard Warz isn't much of an RPG, although I suppose it technically qualifies. (For some reason, I had the opposite opinion in 2011.) One of the things that must have thrown me is that there's no character creation process, aside from selecting your sex and opening batch of spells. Then you're thrown onto the landscape, an apprentice wizard tasked with developing his skills and ultimately freeing the land from the yoke of seven powerful wizards.
The plot and its different phases are just an excuse for a near-endless series of one-on-one combats between you and the other wizards. Every enemy in the game, no matter what it is nominally called--animal, plant, human, supernatural--just looks like a little wizard in a cloak when combat begins. Every enemy has the same types of spells that you do. In combat, you fire spells at each other to lower each other's physical, spiritual, and mental meters. If any of these reaches 0, you die.
The game progresses in three phases. During character creation, you choose four spells that you'll use for the first phase. You then run around an island fighting six creatures: ape (or maybe yeti), spider, scorpion, werewolf, triffid, and serpent. (These might vary by platform.) Upon victory, each gives you an artifact: crown, cape, sword, chalice, pocket watch, and key. By returning these artifacts to the various castles and towns on the island, you receive food in return. Once you've returned all six, the first phase is over and you enter a port town for passage to the next location.
Phase 2 puts you in an arena where you can select from 30 potential opponents from the standard high-fantasy menagerie (e.g., troll, vampire, giant wasp, zombie, gorgon, dwarf, dragon), defeating them one by one. Most victories allow you a new spell (up to 9) or an attribute bump. Four victories give you a familiar, which offers a permanent advantage like shrugging off certain spells. Three of the victories give you a sword, a ring, and wand. Once you have all three of these, you move on to Phase 3.
When I played in 2011, I died in Phase 2 after defeating most of the monsters because I ended up fighting a sorceress who had the "Forget" spell. "Forget" causes your active spell to disappear from your spellbook, and if you've played stupidly (i.e., if that was your only offensive spell), you could end up dead in the water like I was. But back in 2011, I apparently hadn't found the game manual, which offers several options to defend against this fate (particularly "Neutralize Magic," but I particularly like "Mirror," which causes the opponent to forget his own "Forget"). You can also carefully plot your way through the enemies, saving those with "Forget" for later in the phase--and perhaps never meeting them at all, if you get the three items first.
Phase 3 has you take on the seven evil wizards in succession: Wolf Lord, Bear Lord, Imp Lord, Ogre Lord, Gryphon Lord, Crystal Lord, and Dragon Lord. You have to fight several of their henchmen before the wizards themselves appear. Every enemy you kill during this phase rewards you with food, which you can use to replenish physical health. Once you defeat the final wizard, you win.
If it sounds boring, there is theoretically quite a bit of variance in tactics depending on the "wizard" you face. The game manual tells you what spells each type of wizard favors, and you can match your own spell in kind. Particularly during Phases 2 and 3, there are enemies that only respond to certain types of damage, so you cannot for instance rely on physical spells against most undead creatures. You can also tailor various types of defensive spells to their attacks.
But, yes, an awful lot of the game can be completed by simply spamming your most powerful physical spell the moment you see the enemy. I favored a combination where I would hit the enemy with "Slow" or "Stun" and then launch a succession of "Fireballs" or "Magic Missiles." This worked against all but a few creatures for which I needed "Heavenly Bolt" (a spiritual spell) or "Mindwrack" (a mental spell). When you shoot a spell, you have to be aligned right for it to hit the enemy, so a lot depends on your own controller dexterity.
The game does some odd things with the three meters, which are both measures of health and reservoirs of spell points. First, physical health drains a little bit as you walk around, and particularly if you bump into things. Second, it's nearly impossible to replenish mental energy and spiritual energy. You can transfer mental energy to spiritual energy with a key, and also spiritual energy to physical energy. Food, meanwhile, replenishes only physical energy. The only way you get mental energy replenished is as a reward for phase completion or for some of the Phase 2 combats. Any player who decides to specialize in mental spells is in for a tough game, and it's a mystery why the developers didn't better balance these abilities. It would make perfect sense if there was a key that completed the loop by transferring physical energy to mental energy, but there isn't.
The particularly crazy thing about Wizard Warz is that a complete game takes at least a couple of hours, and yet there's no way to save. It also means that even though the individual combats aren't difficult, the accumulation of them--you have to fight over 60 battles to win the game--makes it hard to ensure that something doesn't go wrong. The game could have autosaved at the beginning of each phase to maintain some of the difficulty but keep it fair.
Aside from the lack of save ability, there are a couple of fatal flaws. First, despite wildly different graphics in the various versions, it apparently only shipped with a single set of instructions. The instructions show which graphic goes with which spell, but for many versions of the game, the in-game graphics for the spells look very little like those in the instructions. This makes it difficult to tell what spell the enemy mages are using against you, and what spells are being offered to you after the combats in Phase 2. Second, and most important, the exploration window is laughably small (just about every review commented on this). It makes it hard to find opponents and (in Phase 1) towns, and it also means that during the battles, the two combatants are practically in melee range as they hurl spells at each other.
The game is also bugged. In particular, none of the familiars seem to do what they're supposed to do. One of them is supposed to expand the size of the map window, but nothing seems to change. Others are supposed to protect you against "Stun," "Forget," and "Fear." I can't say for sure they don't work because I'm not sure I was subjected to those spells after getting the familiars, but magazines at the time reported that they didn't work.
Most bugged of all is the victory. I got to the ending on my own and watched two YouTube videos of the endings on different platforms, but I still haven't seen the final screen as originally intended. In the ZX Spectrum edition, the game just froze when the player defeated the final wizard. In the Amiga version, the player got a "congratulations" screen at the end, but it told him that he'd only completed 11% of the game and that he'd only achieved the rank of "apprentice." Meanwhile, in my experience with the Atari ST, nothing happened after I defeated the final wizard and I was able to keep running around the map. If I killed myself, I got a message that I had completed 100% of the game, and that I had achieved a grade of "X Erase," which is text from the instructions. Incidentally, the game had made my character invisible for the last 20 or so minutes of gameplay (not in battle, but on the outdoor map).
Wizard Warz was developed in the mid-1980s in Britain, where most of the RPGs from local studios were highly original, utterly uninfluenced by American titles of the same period, and still not very good. As with games like Heavy on the Magick and Swords and Sorcery, I find myself noting that no other game has taken this particular approach--and then wishing that it had been more derivative. But even allowing for standard British RPG unorthodoxy, it's hard to imagine that anyone thought this game was going to be a blockbuster. And yet the developers (Canvas Software) simultaneously released it on five different platforms, with a sixth following within a year.
Although the structure, commands, and screen layout are the same across its various platforms, the graphics couldn't be more different. Sure, they had to adapt to what the platforms were capable of, but it feels like they didn't re-use any assets at all. They didn't even multi-task the staff: across the six versions are four different lead programmers and four different graphic artists. The box shows solid production values, and the ads rival those for AAA games of the same period. Why did Canvas go all-in on Wizard Warz?
An equal mystery is where Wizard Warz came from in the first place. Canvas mostly specialized in ports for other companies. (In my 2011 entry, before I had any idea how to research properly, I credited them with the famous Airborne Ranger, but they just did ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC ports. I mean, if they had developed it, it would have been British Special Forces or something.) Their in-house games were odd action adaptations of Highlander (1986) and Miami Vice (1986). They had no particular RPG experience or even fantasy experience.
Lead design is credited to a Gary Bolton, who has only three games to his credit. The second is Starring Charlie Chaplin (1988), a unique and absolutely unclassifiable game in which you control the famed comedian, pratfalling your way around a movie studio before you cut and edit the result and see how it does at the box office. He also has a producer credit on an Atari ST port of Atari's Road Runner (1987). (I tried unsuccessfully to find Bolton for this review. I did write to another former Canvas employee but got no response.)
Whatever dreams they had for Wizard Warz, the game didn't save the company: it went out of business in 1988 or 1989. The game's best review was a 77/100 from July 1988's Sinclair User. It's one of those baffling British reviews where you wonder if the author played the same game. I can kind-of understand his praise for the graphics--he's comparing it to other ZX Spectrum games, after all--but not the part where he's bored because he spent too much time "wandering around without knowing where one's next quest is coming from." I don't even know how to respond to that. The only "wandering" that can be done in the game is on the small game maps, and if you can't find the "next quest" on those, you're the kind of person who needs a map to get out of a half-bath.
Your Sinclair, covering the same version, was harsh ("one of the least fun pieces of programming we've had the misfortune to play in months"). ACE was lukewarm at 62/100 ("as RPGs go, it's nothing outstanding"). Continental magazines put it in the 30s and 40s. The worst review was from Zzap!, which gave 30/100 for the C64 version, which admittedly had the worst graphics. (I also couldn't get the controls to work.) But the fact that it was reviewed by so many magazines in the first place testifies to its wide release and, thus, expectations.
I looked over my review of 2011 and decided I was too generous on "equipment" (you really only have food, in terms of usable stuff) but perhaps didn't give enough credit to "magic and combat." I was probably thinking of the spell as a type of "equipment." I don't know why I gave it a 3 for "quests"; any game that offers only a main quest with no side quests or choices gets only a 2. My changes bring it down to a 15 from the original 17 score I'd given it. But more important, I get to change my loss to a win, which was enough to get me an extra percentage point in the sidebar.
Alas, I'm running out of low-hanging fruit in the previously-lost list. Winning Bones (1991) should only take an hour if I can figure out what I did wrong the first time. War in Middle Earth (1988) also shouldn't be that hard; I should have won it before deciding it wasn't an RPG and dismissing it. Seven Spirits of Ra (1987) might be worth another look. Beyond that, there are good reasons I abandoned those games, and any return is not only going to be time-intensive, but it will be time spent on a game I already know I don't like or is very difficult to win. That time is probably best spent moving forward, so don't look for a lot more of these.
Wizard Warz isn't much of an RPG, although I suppose it technically qualifies. (For some reason, I had the opposite opinion in 2011.) One of the things that must have thrown me is that there's no character creation process, aside from selecting your sex and opening batch of spells. Then you're thrown onto the landscape, an apprentice wizard tasked with developing his skills and ultimately freeing the land from the yoke of seven powerful wizards.
The plot and its different phases are just an excuse for a near-endless series of one-on-one combats between you and the other wizards. Every enemy in the game, no matter what it is nominally called--animal, plant, human, supernatural--just looks like a little wizard in a cloak when combat begins. Every enemy has the same types of spells that you do. In combat, you fire spells at each other to lower each other's physical, spiritual, and mental meters. If any of these reaches 0, you die.
 |
| Locked in combat with a werewolf. |
The game progresses in three phases. During character creation, you choose four spells that you'll use for the first phase. You then run around an island fighting six creatures: ape (or maybe yeti), spider, scorpion, werewolf, triffid, and serpent. (These might vary by platform.) Upon victory, each gives you an artifact: crown, cape, sword, chalice, pocket watch, and key. By returning these artifacts to the various castles and towns on the island, you receive food in return. Once you've returned all six, the first phase is over and you enter a port town for passage to the next location.
 |
| Returning an item to the castle in exchange for bread. |
Phase 2 puts you in an arena where you can select from 30 potential opponents from the standard high-fantasy menagerie (e.g., troll, vampire, giant wasp, zombie, gorgon, dwarf, dragon), defeating them one by one. Most victories allow you a new spell (up to 9) or an attribute bump. Four victories give you a familiar, which offers a permanent advantage like shrugging off certain spells. Three of the victories give you a sword, a ring, and wand. Once you have all three of these, you move on to Phase 3.
 |
| Phase 2 lets you choose your opponents, cycling through them with the joystick trigger. This one is best dealt with via physical spells. |
When I played in 2011, I died in Phase 2 after defeating most of the monsters because I ended up fighting a sorceress who had the "Forget" spell. "Forget" causes your active spell to disappear from your spellbook, and if you've played stupidly (i.e., if that was your only offensive spell), you could end up dead in the water like I was. But back in 2011, I apparently hadn't found the game manual, which offers several options to defend against this fate (particularly "Neutralize Magic," but I particularly like "Mirror," which causes the opponent to forget his own "Forget"). You can also carefully plot your way through the enemies, saving those with "Forget" for later in the phase--and perhaps never meeting them at all, if you get the three items first.
 |
| A timely reward for defeating a medusa. |
Phase 3 has you take on the seven evil wizards in succession: Wolf Lord, Bear Lord, Imp Lord, Ogre Lord, Gryphon Lord, Crystal Lord, and Dragon Lord. You have to fight several of their henchmen before the wizards themselves appear. Every enemy you kill during this phase rewards you with food, which you can use to replenish physical health. Once you defeat the final wizard, you win.
 |
| Finding the Wolf Lord in the third phase. Note how the character's face changes as he gets more experience. |
If it sounds boring, there is theoretically quite a bit of variance in tactics depending on the "wizard" you face. The game manual tells you what spells each type of wizard favors, and you can match your own spell in kind. Particularly during Phases 2 and 3, there are enemies that only respond to certain types of damage, so you cannot for instance rely on physical spells against most undead creatures. You can also tailor various types of defensive spells to their attacks.
But, yes, an awful lot of the game can be completed by simply spamming your most powerful physical spell the moment you see the enemy. I favored a combination where I would hit the enemy with "Slow" or "Stun" and then launch a succession of "Fireballs" or "Magic Missiles." This worked against all but a few creatures for which I needed "Heavenly Bolt" (a spiritual spell) or "Mindwrack" (a mental spell). When you shoot a spell, you have to be aligned right for it to hit the enemy, so a lot depends on your own controller dexterity.
The game does some odd things with the three meters, which are both measures of health and reservoirs of spell points. First, physical health drains a little bit as you walk around, and particularly if you bump into things. Second, it's nearly impossible to replenish mental energy and spiritual energy. You can transfer mental energy to spiritual energy with a key, and also spiritual energy to physical energy. Food, meanwhile, replenishes only physical energy. The only way you get mental energy replenished is as a reward for phase completion or for some of the Phase 2 combats. Any player who decides to specialize in mental spells is in for a tough game, and it's a mystery why the developers didn't better balance these abilities. It would make perfect sense if there was a key that completed the loop by transferring physical energy to mental energy, but there isn't.
 |
| Nearing a scorpion in Phase 1. He responds only to physical damage. Fortunately, spiritual and mental energy can be exchanged for physical energy. |
The particularly crazy thing about Wizard Warz is that a complete game takes at least a couple of hours, and yet there's no way to save. It also means that even though the individual combats aren't difficult, the accumulation of them--you have to fight over 60 battles to win the game--makes it hard to ensure that something doesn't go wrong. The game could have autosaved at the beginning of each phase to maintain some of the difficulty but keep it fair.
Aside from the lack of save ability, there are a couple of fatal flaws. First, despite wildly different graphics in the various versions, it apparently only shipped with a single set of instructions. The instructions show which graphic goes with which spell, but for many versions of the game, the in-game graphics for the spells look very little like those in the instructions. This makes it difficult to tell what spell the enemy mages are using against you, and what spells are being offered to you after the combats in Phase 2. Second, and most important, the exploration window is laughably small (just about every review commented on this). It makes it hard to find opponents and (in Phase 1) towns, and it also means that during the battles, the two combatants are practically in melee range as they hurl spells at each other.
 |
| Blasting fireballs at an off-screen enemy. |
The game is also bugged. In particular, none of the familiars seem to do what they're supposed to do. One of them is supposed to expand the size of the map window, but nothing seems to change. Others are supposed to protect you against "Stun," "Forget," and "Fear." I can't say for sure they don't work because I'm not sure I was subjected to those spells after getting the familiars, but magazines at the time reported that they didn't work.
Most bugged of all is the victory. I got to the ending on my own and watched two YouTube videos of the endings on different platforms, but I still haven't seen the final screen as originally intended. In the ZX Spectrum edition, the game just froze when the player defeated the final wizard. In the Amiga version, the player got a "congratulations" screen at the end, but it told him that he'd only completed 11% of the game and that he'd only achieved the rank of "apprentice." Meanwhile, in my experience with the Atari ST, nothing happened after I defeated the final wizard and I was able to keep running around the map. If I killed myself, I got a message that I had completed 100% of the game, and that I had achieved a grade of "X Erase," which is text from the instructions. Incidentally, the game had made my character invisible for the last 20 or so minutes of gameplay (not in battle, but on the outdoor map).
 |
| My "winning" screen. |
Wizard Warz was developed in the mid-1980s in Britain, where most of the RPGs from local studios were highly original, utterly uninfluenced by American titles of the same period, and still not very good. As with games like Heavy on the Magick and Swords and Sorcery, I find myself noting that no other game has taken this particular approach--and then wishing that it had been more derivative. But even allowing for standard British RPG unorthodoxy, it's hard to imagine that anyone thought this game was going to be a blockbuster. And yet the developers (Canvas Software) simultaneously released it on five different platforms, with a sixth following within a year.
Although the structure, commands, and screen layout are the same across its various platforms, the graphics couldn't be more different. Sure, they had to adapt to what the platforms were capable of, but it feels like they didn't re-use any assets at all. They didn't even multi-task the staff: across the six versions are four different lead programmers and four different graphic artists. The box shows solid production values, and the ads rival those for AAA games of the same period. Why did Canvas go all-in on Wizard Warz?
 |
| DOS. |
 |
| Commodore 64. |
 |
| ZX Spectrum. |
An equal mystery is where Wizard Warz came from in the first place. Canvas mostly specialized in ports for other companies. (In my 2011 entry, before I had any idea how to research properly, I credited them with the famous Airborne Ranger, but they just did ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC ports. I mean, if they had developed it, it would have been British Special Forces or something.) Their in-house games were odd action adaptations of Highlander (1986) and Miami Vice (1986). They had no particular RPG experience or even fantasy experience.
Lead design is credited to a Gary Bolton, who has only three games to his credit. The second is Starring Charlie Chaplin (1988), a unique and absolutely unclassifiable game in which you control the famed comedian, pratfalling your way around a movie studio before you cut and edit the result and see how it does at the box office. He also has a producer credit on an Atari ST port of Atari's Road Runner (1987). (I tried unsuccessfully to find Bolton for this review. I did write to another former Canvas employee but got no response.)
 |
| The ad promises a livelier experience than the game was capable of delivering. |
Whatever dreams they had for Wizard Warz, the game didn't save the company: it went out of business in 1988 or 1989. The game's best review was a 77/100 from July 1988's Sinclair User. It's one of those baffling British reviews where you wonder if the author played the same game. I can kind-of understand his praise for the graphics--he's comparing it to other ZX Spectrum games, after all--but not the part where he's bored because he spent too much time "wandering around without knowing where one's next quest is coming from." I don't even know how to respond to that. The only "wandering" that can be done in the game is on the small game maps, and if you can't find the "next quest" on those, you're the kind of person who needs a map to get out of a half-bath.
Your Sinclair, covering the same version, was harsh ("one of the least fun pieces of programming we've had the misfortune to play in months"). ACE was lukewarm at 62/100 ("as RPGs go, it's nothing outstanding"). Continental magazines put it in the 30s and 40s. The worst review was from Zzap!, which gave 30/100 for the C64 version, which admittedly had the worst graphics. (I also couldn't get the controls to work.) But the fact that it was reviewed by so many magazines in the first place testifies to its wide release and, thus, expectations.
I looked over my review of 2011 and decided I was too generous on "equipment" (you really only have food, in terms of usable stuff) but perhaps didn't give enough credit to "magic and combat." I was probably thinking of the spell as a type of "equipment." I don't know why I gave it a 3 for "quests"; any game that offers only a main quest with no side quests or choices gets only a 2. My changes bring it down to a 15 from the original 17 score I'd given it. But more important, I get to change my loss to a win, which was enough to get me an extra percentage point in the sidebar.
Alas, I'm running out of low-hanging fruit in the previously-lost list. Winning Bones (1991) should only take an hour if I can figure out what I did wrong the first time. War in Middle Earth (1988) also shouldn't be that hard; I should have won it before deciding it wasn't an RPG and dismissing it. Seven Spirits of Ra (1987) might be worth another look. Beyond that, there are good reasons I abandoned those games, and any return is not only going to be time-intensive, but it will be time spent on a game I already know I don't like or is very difficult to win. That time is probably best spent moving forward, so don't look for a lot more of these.
this is really interresting to get to know the full backstory of a game and congratulations on ticking one more of the unfinished list, and if the upcomming catacombs is the early 3d-FPS I don´t think it counts as a CRPG according to your rules
ReplyDeleteRE: Catacombs. It actually should be Catacomb without the "s." I found it on the Amiga "Hall of Light" page:
Deletehttp://hol.abime.net
I'm not sure if that's the one that you're talking about or not.
that is not the same as i mentioned I thought about
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxdkyQKLpJI
Aww, come on. Put everything on hold and alternate Bard's Tale 2 with Bard's Tale 3! And when you're done with them Deathlord will feel like a breath of fresh air.
ReplyDeleteThat's a rather masochistic plan... and I say that as someone who generally likes the Bard's Tale series (at least in small doses!)
DeleteBT3 I played long enough that my abandonment of it was informed and I feel okay with my rating. BT2 is another matter. I'm preparing a quick entry on this issue for tomorrow.
DeleteIf you decide to play BT2 again, I recommend starting over with a new party. The starter dungeon is arguably the best part of the game. In fact, you could only complete the starter dungeon and have a brief, enjoyable, and satisfying experience.
DeleteIIRC you abandoned BT3 because the encounter rate was too high. The DOS version of BT3 (and maybe 2 as well) sets the encounter rate based on your computers speed, so if you have anything above an XT/AT you're going to fight a monster every move. If you go back and play these, play the C64 or Apple II versions as these are the originals and have no issues.
DeleteWow, I'm at a loss for words regarding those DOS graphics. I feel I should be wearing 3D glasses or something looking at those.
ReplyDeleteDidn't VGA graphics come out around 1987 / 1988? The PC version graphics should really be a lot better. You could do a lot better with EGA... heck, I swear there are much better looking CGA games.
The standard was introduced in late 1987 but was not widespread for years, it was expensive at the time. It took a while for 256 color mode to catch on, especially for games which were often programmed to the lowest common platform.
DeleteI actually saw a VGA demo of Kings Quest in 1991 on an enormous 27 inch Trinitron and was super impressed. At that time it was still a new and shiny standard.
Yes, VGA only started to really catch up on videogames from 1991. 1987 had mostly CGA/EGA computers around
DeleteYup. Triple A games that spearheaded VGA adoption were Ultima 6, Wing Commander, King's Quest 5, Secret of Monkey Island, and all were from mid/late 1990.
DeleteI was surprised to see on the blog some titles that were definitely ahead of their time, like Drakken (1989).
There was a period before that when shareware/freeware games would prominently include "VGA!" in the title to show how special that was :)
DeleteAh, you say that each version has unique graphics, but 20 coppers bets that the Amiga version is a straight port of the Atari ST version. Lots of companies did that.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're right. Those two are essentially the same. Doesn't weaken the broader point, though.
DeleteHere's an idea to get two major games off your N list. They recently came out with a remastered version of the Bard's Tale 1-3 on Steam. The remasters not only offer graphical updates but gameplay improvements such as less grinding, automap, improved level drain handling, shared party inventory, save anywhere, etc. (They also offer a legacy mode for the grognards.) Maybe what you could do is check out the remastered versions and see if they address some of the issues that stopped you from finishing BT2 and 3 the first time through.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a different (easier) experience that can be accomplished with hex editing and save stating.
DeleteActually, one big one that addresses a specific issue Addict faced is improved spell point regeneration times in BT3.
DeleteThe 8-bit machines typical in the UK were so limited by hardware and different in architecture. That often publishing houses had specialist programmers and artists for each platform. So instead of modifying and repurposing assets, it was easier and quicker to remake a game for each platform as needed.
ReplyDeletePlus there was just really no way to import digital assets from one platform to another. What was written for Commodore stayed on Commodore. If you'd designed the graphics on paper, on a grid-map, for example, you could use that as the basis for new sprites, but even then differing screen resolutions often meant that you just didn't have the same number of pixels to work with anyway.
DeleteThere were ways to port graphics (see for instance how French amstrad cpc game graphics were often designed on and ported from atari STs), but these were custom solutions developed in-house by bigger studios. A lot of the game porting work was done by freelancers (often with very low pay and short deadlines) who didn't have access to these tools.
Delete(That's for the European 80s game industry and it's unique blend of platforms, I don't know enough about other parts of the world)
Interestingly the cpc version was properly redone, it's not just a straight spectrum port as there were so many, but the amiga version seems to be a straight st port. That's a good illustration of the different approaches to making multiplatform games in the 80s.
The amstrad version was rather liked by french reviewers (it scored 75% in amstrad 100%, 13/20 in 2 other magazines), though none of them mention it's a crpg, in fact they tend to put it in the arcade adventure category (one of the reviewers compared it to the Druid games, which seems fair).
About Canvas software, it seems to be one of those software houses that churned out a lot of games, many under contract from someone bigger, and it probably shows in the quality of their own designs. The manual suggests there's all sorts of tactics and a complex system of spell interactions, but as you and a French reviewer noted fireballs are good enough for most of the fights. It could probably have used some more design time, but that just wasn't how it was done back then.
I should also mention that the 2 other canvas games you mention (Highlander and Miami Vice) were made under contract and they're famous for being some of the worst licensed games ever made, and it may have been on purpose in Highlander's case, see this Kim Justice video for details: https://youtu.be/zuy7jKRNu5w
Say what, now? Anyone with access to a modem could EASILY import digital assets from one platform to another. Almost every studio did that, it's a rarity that this one does not.
DeleteI think your colorblindness is making the DOS version look a lot better than it actually is. To me, that looks like the absolute worst looking version, while the C64 version looks fairly decent to me
ReplyDeleteJust ran the DOS screenshot through the Color Blindness Simulator (https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/), and yeah, it looks a lot more plausible/less garish in one of the red- or green-weak or red/green-blind modes.
DeleteFor all the downsides and frustrations of color blindness (which i don't mean in any way to trivialize or catastrophize), I wonder if it also makes some early DOS palettes seem less hideous.
You consider 10 hours of THIS as low hanging fruit? I wish I had your patience with actually good games... I'm looking forward to another post on War in Middle-Earth. The old one was pretty funny.
ReplyDeleteI think the 10 hours is the combined time played not just this session
DeleteWizardry IV calls you. Will you resist the Sirens' song?
ReplyDeleteLooking at your postings from 9 years ago, seems to me like Swords of Glass and Scavengers of the Mutant World, while not quite "Quick" wins, are certainly candidates for a re-do and would probably clock in around the 10-15 hour mark if you finished them. Wizard Wars (with an "s", not "z" like this game) you also could turn into a W relatively easily, although it would make a redundant blog post seeing as how you already posted about someone else winning. The rest, as you mention, look either too hard or too long and boring.
ReplyDeleteI played Swords of Glass as a kid. I never finished it and I had a lot of time on my hands, so I doubt that it would take Addict 10-15 hours, but I was also a lot dumber than I am now. I would love to see Addict go back and try to win that one, because it looks like he stopped because he didn't understand the interface to get past sleep traps.
DeleteHi Eugene, maybe a bit stupid question. I'm trying to play the DOS version you did in 2011. But i cannot figure out the "Fire" key. Do you remember what key it was?
ReplyDeleteI might need to map it, because I'm on a laptop...
. . . "Eugene" . . .
DeleteNot for that reason, but I'm afraid I don't remember. I don't remember having any trouble finding it, so it must be something obvious like SPACE or ENTER. I was on a laptop, too.