''Wizadore'' is a video game developed by

Imagine Software Imagine Software was a British video games developer based in Liverpool which existed briefly in the early 1980s, initially producing software for the ZX Spectrum and VIC-20. The company rose quickly to prominence and was noted for its polished, ...

and released on cassette tape for the

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...

home computer in 1985. It was developed by Chris Roberts (then aged 16 and his first commercially successful game) and released by

in February 1985 for the

home computer and became a best seller.

Gameplay

Wizadore is a simple side scrolling

platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

with a three item inventory. The player's character is a

mage Mage most commonly refers to: * Mage (paranormal) or magician, a practitioner of magic derived from supernatural or occult sources * Mage (fantasy) or magician, a type of character in mythology, folklore, and fiction *Mage, a character class in s ...

whose grandfather created a sword to kill Smaun, an evil dragon, but which has been broken into three parts and must be collected in order to be used. Players need jump across gaps and climb ladders to collect various weapons and scrolls to defeat guards armed with axes and swords and soldiers riding flying creatures that drop weapons. To advance through the game, players need to juggle their inventory carefully as certain weapons only kill certain types of enemy. Archers remain invulnerable and the player needs to jump over their arrows. The timing of jumps was critical and needed to be almost pixel perfect to avoid dying. The combination of the climb and jump key added a level of difficulty.

Prizes

As a marketing ploy, Wizadore offered a monthly prize of £100 to people who completed it (up to the end of August 1985).

References

{{reflist 1985 video games BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games BBC Micro and Acorn Electron-only games Video games developed in the United Kingdom