Why do I have "wizkid" as my username at Lysator? Well, I had to come up with one quickly when I got my account. I asked for "Wizball", the name of one of my favourite old computer games. That name was already taken so I went for "Wizkid", the name of its little-known sequel.

While the highly original and classic Wizball was arguably best in the C64 version, Wizkid was only released for Amiga, Atari ST and DOS. It is just as weird and original as its predecessor, if not more so. The character Wizkid is the son of Wizball, and his mission is to rescue Wizball, Wizard and the cat Nifta (known from the Wizball game) from the evil Zark who has kidnapped them. This will take Wizkid through a number of different levels, each with it's own theme (circus, underwater, horror, mountains, the bonus stage from Wizball and more).

The gameplay is very different from Wizball. Wizkid consists of two different game styles. In the first you control only Wizkid's head, and you have to bounce bricks on it in order to kill off various creatures and pick up the coins that then appear. This is quite fun but the gameplay is not as solid as in Wizball.

The second game style is more of an adventure game and this is where the game really shines. Here, Wizkid is no longer simply a head but has a body as well. He can visit shops and buy stuff to aid him in his quest, using money collected from the other part of the game. There is a lot of weird humour, hidden secrets and strange things to do. Before you complete the game you must also master a secret arcade game.

Here are scans of the very Robert Crumb-esque game packaging:

Here are some other Wizkid related links:
Wizkid at classicgaming.com
Wizkid at the-underdogs.org

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