Wizard Of Wor

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Wizard Of Wor is an arcade game from 1980, developed by Midway, and later ported to the Commodore 64 as well as the Atari 2600. The title of the game is often incorrectly spelled as "Wizard of War". The game was released as part of the compilation game Midway Arcade Treasures 2 in 2004.

[edit] Gameplay

Wizard Of Wor is an action-oriented game for one or two players. The game takes the form of several maze-like dungeons infested with monsters. The players' characters, called Worriors, have to kill all the monsters.

Each dungeon is in the form of a single-screen rectangular grid with walls and corridors in various formations. The Worriors and the monsters can travel freely through the corridors. Player one has blue Worriors and player two has yellow Worriors.

The various monsters include the following:

• Burwor: A blue Dragon-type creature.
• Garwor: A yellow Tyrannosaurus Rex-type creature.
• Thorwor: A red scorpion-like creature. Has the ability to turn invisible, thus it can only been seen with the radar.
• Worluk: An Insectoid-type creature.
• Wizard Of Wor: A blue wizard.

Normally, each dungeon starts filled with Burwors. In the first dungeon, shooting the last Burwor makes a Garwor appear. Shooting the Garwor makes a Thorwor appear. In the second dungeon, shooting the second to last and last Burwors makes Garwors appear, and so on. Each dungeon has doors at the left and right edges, which connect with each other, making the dungeon wrap around. Whenever these are used, they will deactivate, making them work as a normal wall. After a certain amount of time, they will reactivate. They can be used by both Worriors and monsters.

The Worluk and the Wizard Of Wor only appear in special "bonus dungeons". There are two types of bonus dungeon, one for the Worluk and one for the Wizard Of Wor. In the Worluk dungeon, Worriors move slower than normal. The Wizard Of Wor is able to teleport randomly across the dungeon. If the Worluk or Wizard Of Wor escapes through the door at the left or right edge before being shot, the bonus dungeon is lost. In these bonus dungeons, the doors at the left and right edges are permanently active.

The Wizard of Wor himself is a Cyborg (he has a human face, but robotic eyes and hands) who possesses powers of teleportation and attacks the player with Magic. He lacks visible legs. He uses a speech synthesizer to taunt the player.

In a two-player game, the players are also able to shoot each other's Worriors, earning bonus points but causing the other player to lose a life.

[edit] Trivia

This game appears in Midway Arcade Treasures 2, which is for several consoles.