Wizorb is a retro style Indie block-breaking game by Tribute Games.
A wandering wizard named Cyrus arrives in the kingdom of Gerodu to find that it has been besieged by the evil Demon King and his forces. Only Tarot Village remains free, and even then, it has suffered major damage and its four Sacred Children, who hold the key to stopping the Demon King, have been kidnapped. Cyrus must now use his magic to fight through the kingdom, defeat the Demon King's forces, rebuild Tarot, save the children, and save the kingdom.
Wizorb is unlike most other block-breaking games. Players control Cyrus as he moves around the level in his Wizorb, keeping him from falling to his doom via the magic wand. As Cyrus' quest continues, he will acquire gold with which he can help to rebuild Tarot Village and buy items ranging from extra lives to temporary upgrades to his wand. Cyrus also has access to several spells, including fireballs, gusts of wind to help direct the orb, teleporting the orb, and being able to manually control the orb for a limited time.
Not to be confused with Wizball.
Wizorb contains examples of:
- 1-Up: Known simply as Extra Life.
- All-Natural Gem Polish: All gems you collect are like this.
- All There in the Manual: Only in the Help section, accessible from the main menu, does the game tell the player that the wand's speed can be increased with a key (N by default).
- Ambidextrous Sprite: Cyrus when in Tarot Village will shift his staff into either hand depending on which direction he is facing.
- Anti-Frustration Features: If you haven't hit any blocks for a while, the ball will start to flash white. Hitting the ball with the magic wand in this state restores a small bit of magic.
- Big Bad: The Demon King.
- Blow You Away: The Alter spell, which lets you summon wind to quickly change the direction of the orb. Many bosses will also use wind spells to blow the orb away from them.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Averted. The multi-coloured blocks and boxes drop different things depending on the part of the level. This includes Poison Mushroom items.
- Damage Reduction: For the final battle, you can purchase ramparts that will protect your orb three times before getting destroyed.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Daddy Slime, Gorgon Eye, and Grim Reaper.
- Dungeon Town: The first world.
- Earn Your Bad Ending: Buying the crown costs 10,000 gold. It requires hoarding a lot of money before buying it, and completing a lot of levels while spending as little cash as possible on anything else.
- Face–Heel Turn: This happens to Cyrus if he buys the Crown, which makes him so greedy that he becomes the new evil overlord.
- Fake Difficulty: Jumping into the game and using the keyboard set-up will probably frustrate players in the later levels, as the wand's base speed is too slow to keep up with the orb's top speed.
- Flunky Boss: The Demon King will summon skull knights to assist him during the final battle. You need to defeat them in order to get enough magic potions to keep casting Fireball.
- Ground Pound: Daddy Slime boss has a jumping attack.
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests: They’re the hardest to destroy, but also contain the best loot.
- Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: Having the key somehow lets you unlock the door by touching it with a seemingly unchanged boulder. The key will disappear after that procedure as well.
- In the Back: Shield blocks have to be hit from behind in order to be destroyed. Same applies for the skull knight enemies, which will simply hit the orb with enough strength to deflect it from them.
- King Mook: The Werewolf is this to wolfkids, Daddy Slime to normal slimes, Gorgon Eye to eye monsters... If you think about it, practically every boss is a logical evolution of the level's monsters, but with some magical powers thrown in.
- Mana Drain: The drain curses that will occasionally fall out of some destroyed blocks.
- Mana Meter: Used to cast spells by Cyrus. Some blocks drop magic potions which refill it.
- Manual Override: the Control spell, which temporarily provides you with manual control of the orb, as opposed to the block-bouncing.
- Meet the New Boss: This happens to the entire kingdom if Cyrus buys the crown, which blinds him with greed and makes him evil.
- Living MacGuffin: The Sacred Children.
- Multiple Endings: Three of them.
- Good ending: Most or all of the town is rebuilt and Owain has managed to overcome the curse and save the kingdom.
- Bad ending: You didn’t help to rebuild the town, so Owain wasn’t strong enough to deal with the curse.
- Worst ending: Cyrus buys the crown, which makes him into a greedy evil overlord regardless of anything else.
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Nintendo Hard: As usual for the developers. - One-Hit Kill: The Death Curse, which can rarely fall out of destroyed blocks on some levels. The Grim Reaper will summon them during his boss battle.
- Playing with Fire:
- One of your black magic spells is Fireball, which can destroy any block or enemy, but requires a while to regenerate. The only way to defeat the final boss is with this spell.
- There’s also the Magma Orb spell, which gives a temporary damage boost to the orb.
- Poison Mushroom: The various curses, which will fall out of some destroyed items. There are steal curses, which will decrease the amount of your gold, the drain curses, which do the same for mana, shrink curses, which decrease the orb’s size, and glue curses, which will temporarily slow the orb down or even stop it outright. Finally, the last level introduces the death curses and the ability blocking curses.
- Puzzle Boss: The Guardian in the Slime Forest will always block the orb with his shield. To defeat him, you need to destroy the gate behind him, after which he will run away.
- Retraux: The late 80's style is followed to a T, starting with visuals and ending with the 8-bit/16-bit soundtrack.
- RPG Elements: A Breakout game with spells, gold, and a shop system, as well as the ability to engage in conversations.
- Shmuck Bait: The Crown. An extremely expensive item (10000 GP, while everything else costs far less than that) that does nothing and seemingly serves only to showcase how rich you are… right until you get to the end. Purchasing the crown automatically gives you the worst ending, where Cyrus is blinded by greed and becomes an evil overlord himself.
- Shock and Awe: The lightning spell used by the Gorgon Eye boss. It can instantly destroy your wand and effectively prevent you from doing anything.
- Shout-Out:
- The guard in Tarot Village will say the classic "I Feel Asleep" line from Metal Gear.
- The imagery during the ending credits is reminiscent of Mega Man 2's ending.
- Sidetrack Bonus: In all levels starting from the second, there’s a side path locked away behind a gate that only becomes accessible after you gain the required amulet piece (i.e. after you defeat the level’s boss). The path leads to some goodies and eventually to the Sacred Child of the level’s element.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: It’s possible to engage in a conversation with a dog, amongst other things.
- Sprint Shoes: The orb speeds up when it hits wooden boxes. Mushrooms make it change direction and increase the speed by a considerable amount. The fast orb curse will do this to make it very difficult to control. Unsurprisingly, one of the best upgrades is slow orb, which decreases its speed and makes it easier to control.
- Suspicious Videogame Generosity: One level near the end of Cursed Castle (4-11, specifically) contains loads of treasure chests, no exceptionally-tricky layout, and no enemies.
- Taken for Granite: The Gorgon Eye boss can cast stone skin on itself, making it temporarily immune to your attacks.
- Teleport Spam: The ghost enemies in the Cursed Castle are capable of teleporting away from the orb. It’s possible to teleport your own orb after you have died as well.
- Video Game Caring Potential: Saving all of the Sacred Children and investing a considerable amount of money into rebuilding the entire village.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: It is also possible to complete the game without giving one cent to Tarot's reconstruction. You get a Bad Ending for it, as well as an achievement fittingly called "World Of Ruin".
- Wake-Up Call Boss: The mine boss is the first boss that has an actual defence system and can outright destroy your wand.
