Wizball

Wizball is an inventive action game published by Ocean Software and developed by Sensible Software, in which the wizard Wiz, after a botched spell, turns into a bouncing, flying little ball and sets out to restore color to a faded world. The player collects colored bubbles that gradually paint the individual levels back into color, while points earned can be spent upgrading the ball with weapons, fuel, or a higher jump, and there's also the cat Nifta at hand, who in single-player mode can be controlled alternately with the ball, or, in two-player mode, the cat's role can be split with a friend, with the second player handling color collection while the first destroys enemies and each level's key bosses.

The game was unusual visually too — the screen was split into a main action window and a smaller overview map showing the progress of coloring the world, giving the player clear feedback on how much was still left to conquer. A memorable part of the experience was also the catchy music, which, together with the colorful, fairy-tale aesthetic, created an atmosphere distinct from the darker action games of the time, and the gradual upgrading of the ball gave the game a pleasant sense of long-term growth, since stronger weapons and longer flight allowed increasingly bold leaps between more distant bubbles.

On release, Wizball received very positive reviews for the originality of its concept and for how elegantly it combined action shooting with gradual, visible progress in the form of restored colors. With this title, Sensible Software built a reputation as a studio with a knack for original, playful ideas, which it later built on with other successful games. To this day, Wizball ranks among the most creative titles of the eight-bit era and is a good example of how the British scene managed to squeeze a fresh, still-playable game out of a simple idea — one that even players accustomed to more modern genre conventions can appreciate.

Why play: For the original combination of action shooting with the gradual restoration of color to the game world — a creative, still-playable title that even players used to more modern genre conventions can appreciate.