Wizardry
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:35 pm
Wizardry was released back in 1981, although I don't think we got a copy until 1982. I'm pretty sure my first copy for the Apple II was a bootleg one as I remember having a Xeroxed copy of the manual. We did end up buying a copy of the game at some point in time, however. Maybe we pirated the Apple II version and then bought it for the PC a few years later. I can't remember. It's been three decades.
Wizardry was essentially and electronic version of Dungeons and Dragons. The computer took the place of a Dungeon Master, by throwing monsters at you and keeping track of your gold and experience points and showing you where you were through (what would be considered today to be extremely simplistic) graphics.
Like D&D, part of the fun of Wizardry was simply creating characters and assembling your party. There were lots of races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Hobbit) and classes (Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief, Wizard) to choose from. The game also had a pretty simplistic view of alignment: there were good, neutral, and evil characters. Good and Evil characters couldn't adventure together, but both could adventure with Neutrals.
Although it seems obvious now, Wizardry was the first game I remember playing where you could go other places than "the dungeon". There was a tavern, and an inn, and a weapons shop and an armor shop -- the idea being, with gold earned down in the dungeon, you could upgrade your equipment. With experience earned down in the dungeon, you could level up.
In the GameFAQs entry for Wizardry, someone asked "Does Wizardry have an automapping feature?" HA! HA HA! No, it does not. My dad used to bring home stacks of accounting paper which the two of us used to map out the 10 20x20 lvels of Wizardry's dungeon. While it sounds simple, there were plenty of spinners and teleporting traps that made creating a map quite a challenge.
There were lots of ways to cheat in Wizardry. One involved using a mage to identify objects that were outside of the scope of the game. Glitches like this one would cause the game to deliver players either a million experience points or a million gold pieces -- either one was enough to set you up for life. Back before the days of common encryption, you could also simply hex edit your characters and increase their experience, abilities, or net worth. There were after market programs (Wiz Fix) that would do this automatically for you.
My dad and I spent the better part of a year playing Wizardry. Dad used to work 3pm-11pm, so I would play Wizardry after school, updating our maps and taking notes along the way. When dad got home at 11pm he would take over and play all night. I'd pick up where he left off the next day.
I've always felt like Bard's Tale was just an updated version of Wizardry. I discovered Bard's Tale in 1985. Like my Dad and I had done with Wizardry, my buddy Jeff and I worked our way through Bard's Tale by tag-teaming it. We beat Bard's Tale II and III the same way, in fact.
I never got into the later versions of Wizardry, although I'm tempted to go back and try one. For that matter I never got into the console releases of the game, either. I know Wizardry was eventually ported to the NES and I'm sure some of the later ones made it to other systems, but to me it was always a computer game.
Wizardry was essentially and electronic version of Dungeons and Dragons. The computer took the place of a Dungeon Master, by throwing monsters at you and keeping track of your gold and experience points and showing you where you were through (what would be considered today to be extremely simplistic) graphics.
Like D&D, part of the fun of Wizardry was simply creating characters and assembling your party. There were lots of races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Hobbit) and classes (Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief, Wizard) to choose from. The game also had a pretty simplistic view of alignment: there were good, neutral, and evil characters. Good and Evil characters couldn't adventure together, but both could adventure with Neutrals.
Although it seems obvious now, Wizardry was the first game I remember playing where you could go other places than "the dungeon". There was a tavern, and an inn, and a weapons shop and an armor shop -- the idea being, with gold earned down in the dungeon, you could upgrade your equipment. With experience earned down in the dungeon, you could level up.
In the GameFAQs entry for Wizardry, someone asked "Does Wizardry have an automapping feature?" HA! HA HA! No, it does not. My dad used to bring home stacks of accounting paper which the two of us used to map out the 10 20x20 lvels of Wizardry's dungeon. While it sounds simple, there were plenty of spinners and teleporting traps that made creating a map quite a challenge.
There were lots of ways to cheat in Wizardry. One involved using a mage to identify objects that were outside of the scope of the game. Glitches like this one would cause the game to deliver players either a million experience points or a million gold pieces -- either one was enough to set you up for life. Back before the days of common encryption, you could also simply hex edit your characters and increase their experience, abilities, or net worth. There were after market programs (Wiz Fix) that would do this automatically for you.
My dad and I spent the better part of a year playing Wizardry. Dad used to work 3pm-11pm, so I would play Wizardry after school, updating our maps and taking notes along the way. When dad got home at 11pm he would take over and play all night. I'd pick up where he left off the next day.
I've always felt like Bard's Tale was just an updated version of Wizardry. I discovered Bard's Tale in 1985. Like my Dad and I had done with Wizardry, my buddy Jeff and I worked our way through Bard's Tale by tag-teaming it. We beat Bard's Tale II and III the same way, in fact.
I never got into the later versions of Wizardry, although I'm tempted to go back and try one. For that matter I never got into the console releases of the game, either. I know Wizardry was eventually ported to the NES and I'm sure some of the later ones made it to other systems, but to me it was always a computer game.