Have You Played... WizKid?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

Long before Valve took the mantle in my teens and early 20s, it was Sensible Software who seemed like the do-no-wrong game developers. Whether sports or strategy or whatever the heck Wizkid was, I loved everything I played of what they made.

Wizkid, sequel to Wizball, was the strangest of their games, in that it was about a bouncing green ball with a face on it. The introductory title screen has him conducting an orchestra of cannons, and I remember the early rooms - the game was split into screens and controlled like a platformer - included going down a well and securing your green ball to a body.

I remember it seemed sort of medieval-ish? Fantasy medieval-ish, at any rate, as if a wizard might appear at any moment.

Or perhaps that was just what I thought based on the name. I was rubbish at Wizkid, you see, and a kid myself, so I never saw further than the fifth or sixth screen, when I'd inevitably die and be sent back to the start. I became expert in Sensible Software's other games, but Wizkid stuck with me for how odd it was despite my inability to progress with it.