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Wizardry

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Wizardry is a series of computer role-playing games, developed by Sir-Tech, that were popular in the 1980s. Originally made for the Apple II, they were later ported to other platforms. The latest game in the series, Wizardry 8, is available only for Windows.

Wizardry is also the name of a 1985 computer game from the British company The Edge. It is an action-adventure game unrelated to Sir-Tech's series.

In addition to perspective views of dungeons, Wizardry provided graphical representations of creatures during combat as in this Apple II version of the game.
In addition to perspective views of dungeons, Wizardry provided graphical representations of creatures during combat as in this Apple II version of the game.

Contents

History

Wizardry began as a simple dungeon crawl by Andrew C. Greenberg and Robert Woodhead. It was written when they were students at Cornell University and then published by Sir-Tech. The first four games in the series were written in Apple Pascal, an implementation of UCSD Pascal, and was ported to many different platforms by writing UCSD Pascal implementations for the target machines.

David W. Bradley took over the series after the fourth installment, adding a new level of plot and complexity. Woodhead went on to found the North American anime import company Animeigo, and Greenberg to become an intellectual property lawyer and contributor to the Squeak open source project. Greenberg also wrote another game series, Star Saga.

The earliest installments of Wizardry were quite successful, as they were the first graphically-rich incarnations of Dungeons & Dragons-type gameplay for home computers. The release of the first version coincided with the height of D&D's popularity in North America.

Series

Ultimately the initial game became a series:

  1. Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981)
  2. Knight of Diamonds (1982)
  3. Legacy of Llylgamyn (1983)
  4. The Return of Werdna (1986)
  5. Heart of the Maelstrom (1988)
  6. Bane of the Cosmic Forge (1990)
  7. Crusaders of the Dark Savant (1992) (Remade as Wizardry Gold in 1996)
  8. Wizardry Nemesis (1996)
  9. Wizardry 8 (2001)
The first and last three games are seperate trilogies.

The fourth game, Return of Werdna, was a significant departure from the rest of the series. In it, the player controlled Werdna, the evil wizard slain in the first game, and summoned groups of monsters to aid him as he fought his way up from the bottom of his prison. Rather than monsters, the player faced typical adventuring parties, some of which were pulled from actual user disks sent to Sir-Tech for recovery. Further, the player had only a limited number of keystrokes to use to complete the game. It is generally considered one of the most challenging CRPGs of all time.

Wizardry Nemesis was an even more significant departure from the rest of the series. It was done as a "solo" adventure, i.e. 1 character, no supporting party or monsters. All players used the same character - no class or attribute selection - and there were only 16 spells (compared to 50 in the first 4 adventures, and more in the subsequent ones). It was the first one where you saw the monsters in advance, and could try to avoid them. While it carried the Wizardry name, many people do not consider it as part of the series as it was too different. Lending credence to this distinction is that while it would normally be the viewed as the 8th game in the series, Sir-Tech later released Wizardry 8.

Series in Japan

The popularity of Wizardry in Japan led to the making of an anime OVA (direct-to-video animation), and several original console sequels, spinoffs, and ports. Most have not been released in the US.

  1. Wizardry I - Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (MZ-2500, X1/turbo, FM-7, FM-77, PC-8801, PC-9801, MSX2, NES, Game Boy Color, WonderSwan Color, Cell phone)
  2. Wizardry II - Knight of Diamonds (MZ-2500, X1/turbo, FM-7, FM-77, PC-8801, PC-9801, MSX2, NES, Game Boy Color)
  3. Wizardry I & II (Turbo CD)
  4. Wizardry III - Legacy of Llylgamyn (X1/turbo, FM-7, FM-77, PC-8801, PC-9801, MSX2, Game Boy Color)
  5. Wizardry IV - The Return of Werdna (X1/turbo, FM-7, FM-77, PC-8801, PC-9801)
  6. Wizardry III & IV (Turbo CD)
  7. Wizardry V - Heart of the Maelstrom (FM-TOWNS, PC-8801, PC-9801, SNES, Turbo CD)
  8. Wizardry VI - Bane of the Cosmic Forge (FM-TOWNS, PC-9801, 98note, J-3100, SNES)
  9. Wizardry VI & VII (Saturn)
  10. Wizardry VII - Crusaders of the Dark Savant (PC-9801, PC-9821, PlayStation)
  11. Wizardry Gaiden - Suffering of the Queen (Game Boy, 1991)
  12. Wizardry Gaiden 2 - Curse of the Ancient Emperor (Game Boy, 1992)
  13. Wizardry Gaiden 3 - Scripture of the Dark (Game Boy, 1993)
  14. Wizardry Gaiden 4 - Throb of the Demon's Heart (SNES, 1996)
  15. Wizardry Nemesis (Microsoft Windows, Sega Saturn, 1996)
  16. Wizardry: Llylgamyn Saga(Windows, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, 2000)
  17. Wizardry: New Age of Llylgamyn (PlayStation, 2000)
  18. Wizardry: Dimguil (PlayStation, 2000)
  19. Wizardry Empire (PlayStation, Game Boy Color, 2000)
  20. Wizardy Empire II: Fukkatsu no Tsue (PlayStation, Game Boy Color, 2002)
  21. Wizardry Empire III (PlayStation 2, 2003)
  22. Wizardry Chronicle (Windows)
  23. Wizardry Summoner (Game Boy Advance, 2001)
  24. Busin: Wizardry Alternative (Tale of the Forsaken Land in America) (PlayStation 2, 2001)
  25. Busin 0: Wizardry Alternative Neo (PlayStation 2)
  26. Wizardry Traditional (Cell Phone)
  27. Wizardry Traditional 2 (Cell Phone)
  28. Wizardry Xth Academy of Frontier (PlayStation 2,2005)
  29. Wizardry Asterix: Hiiro no Fuuin (Nintendo DS, 2005)
  30. Wizardry Gaiden: Prisoners of the Battles (Windows, 2005)
  31. Wizardry Summoner (PlayStation 2, 2005)
  32. Wizardry Xth2 UNLIMITED STUDENT (PlayStation 2,2006)
The virtual reality game in the 2001 movie Avalon by the director Mamoru Oshii was loosely based on Wizardry. Oshii was a fan of this game in the 1980s.

Yuji Horii, drew inspiration from the Wizardry , Mugen no Sinzou(Heart of Phantasm), and Ultima series of games for making the popular Japanese RPG game Dragon Quest.

Legacy

Wizardry inspired many clones and served as a template for computer RPG games. Some notable series that trace their look and feel to Wizardry include The Bard's Tale and Might and Magic.

External links

 

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