The Commodore 64 version of Melbourne House‘s fantasy maze shooter, Wiz, unfortunately suffers from an ailment that might make the game unpalatable to many Commodore 64 fans, and that is: it has slow, jerky scrolling…

I know, I know… Such a thing in unforgivable on the C64, because its users quite reasonably expect smooth scrolling in their games. But programmer John F. Cain decided not to implement a pixel scroll routine, opting instead to scroll the backgrounds in blocks, which is disappointing. That said: this technical deficiency doesn’t ruin the game, and Wiz remains a relatively absorbing experience. For a short while at least.

Wiz is an overhead scrolling shoot ’em up, with you playing as a wizard who must build his magic levels by shooting enemies and scoring points. Touching enemies reduces your energy, as does casting spells, but there are two ways to rebuild it, either: 1. wait and it will replenish over time, or 2. Cast the “Zap” spell at enemies and absorb their energy.

If your energy reaches zero then it’s an instant ‘game over’, but the key thing is to prevent that from happening by running away when you need to, and also by playing, and casting your spells, carefully. Don’t go shooting in all directions, and only fire repeat shots when you have more than one enemy moving towards you. The controls in Wiz are actually pretty decent and they allow you to face a certain direction without moving, if you jab in that direction. Which is good for clearing enemies at close quarters. You can’t fire diagonally, though, which the game could’ve benefitted from having.

Changing spells is done by pressing fire (or Space) and by cycling through the four coloured circles on the right-hand side of the screen. The first one (red) represents “Move and Cast“, where the wizard can move and cast whatever spell he has selected in his spellbook. The second one (blue) is for “Prepare Spell“. The third (grey) is for “Read Spell Book“, which lists all available spells, and the fourth (purple) is for “Buy Spell“. This is: according to the manual. Having played Wiz for a good few hours now I have to say that I’m non-the-wiser with regard to the circles…

In spite of the jerky scrolling, I think Wiz is a pretty good game. It does reward your progress with increased power, although where that power ultimately leads I couldn’t tell you (because I never made it there). I never fully understood the magic system, and the spell-changing system is a ball-ache. But other than that I quite enjoyed playing Wiz.

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