Wizardry
Encyclopedia
Wizardry is a series of computer role-playing games, developed by Sir-Tech
Sir-Tech
Sir-Tech Software, Inc. was a United States-based video game developer and publisher founded by Robert Woodhead and Norman Sirotek. While the original company closed its doors in 2001, its Canadian counterpart Sir-Tech Canada continued to operate up until late 2003.Sir-Tech is best known for the...

, which were highly influential in the development of modern console and computer role playing games. The original Wizardry was a significant influence to early console RPGs, such as Dragon Warrior
Dragon Warrior
Dragon Warrior, known as in Japan, is the first role-playing video game  in the Dragon Quest media franchise. It was developed by Chunsoft for the Nintendo Entertainment System and published by Enix in Japan in 1986...

 and Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy
is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix . The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy role-playing video games , but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise...

. Originally made for the Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...

, they were later ported to other platforms. The last official game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...

 in the series by Sir-Tech, the original developer, Wizardry 8
Wizardry 8
Wizardry 8 is the eighth and final title in the Wizardry series of computer role-playing games by Sir-Tech. It is the third in the Dark Savant trilogy, which includes Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge and Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant...

, is available only for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

. There have since been various spin-off titles released only in Japan.

History

Wizardry began as a simple dungeon crawl
Dungeon crawl
A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment, battling various monsters, and looting any treasure they may find...

 by Andrew C. Greenberg
Andrew C. Greenberg
Andrew C. Greenberg co-created Wizardry with Robert Woodhead, which was one of the first role-playing games for a personal computer. He was also involved with the production of the game Q-Bert and several of the later Wizardry games in the 1980s. He is a graduate of Cornell University, where he...

 and Robert Woodhead
Robert Woodhead
Robert J. Woodhead is a entrepreneur, software engineer and former game programmer. He claims that a common thread in his career is "doing weird things with computers". Along with Andrew C...

. It was written when they were students at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 and then published by Sir-Tech
Sir-Tech
Sir-Tech Software, Inc. was a United States-based video game developer and publisher founded by Robert Woodhead and Norman Sirotek. While the original company closed its doors in 2001, its Canadian counterpart Sir-Tech Canada continued to operate up until late 2003.Sir-Tech is best known for the...

. The game was a success, selling 24,000 copies by June 1982 (in comparison, Temple of Apshai
Temple of Apshai
The Temple of Apshai is a computer role-playing game from Epyx. The game was first released for the TRS-80 in 1979, then the Apple II and Atari home computers in 1980. In 1983, it was released for the Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, and IBM PC compatibles. Even later it was made available with...

sold 30,000 and Ultima sold 50,000).

The first five games in the series were written in Apple Pascal, an implementation of UCSD Pascal
UCSD Pascal
UCSD Pascal was a Pascal programming language system that ran on the UCSD p-System, a portable, highly machine-independent operating system. UCSD Pascal was first released in 1978...

, and were ported to many different platforms by writing UCSD Pascal implementations for the target machines (Mac II cross-development).

David W. Bradley
David W. Bradley
David W. Bradley is a computer game designer and programmer, most notable for the highly successful and timeless classics: "Wizardry 7" and "Wizards and Warriors"...

 took over the series after the fourth installment, adding a new level of plot and complexity. Woodhead went on to found the North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 import company AnimEigo
AnimEigo
AnimEigo is an American entertainment company that licenses and distributes anime, samurai films and Japanese cinema. The company was founded in 1988 in Ithaca, New York by Robert Woodhead and Roe R. Adams, III. It is now based in Wilmington, North Carolina, and run by Natsumi Ueki, Robert's wife...

 and Greenberg went on to become an intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...

 lawyer and contributor to the Squeak
Squeak
The Squeak programming language is a Smalltalk implementation. It is object-oriented, class-based and reflective.It was derived directly from Smalltalk-80 by a group at Apple Computer that included some of the original Smalltalk-80 developers...

 open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 project. Greenberg also wrote another game series, Star Saga
Star Saga
Star Saga is a series of floppy-based computer games which combine a computerized game arbiter with hefty sections of printed text. Released in an era before the availability of the CD-ROM format, the titles make up for the limited storage available at the time by using print to attempt to tell a...

.

The earliest installments of Wizardry were quite successful, as they were the first graphically-rich incarnations of Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

-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:
  • Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981)
  • Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds (1982)
  • Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn (1983)
  • Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna (1987)
  • Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom (1988)
  • Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge (1990)
  • Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant (1992) (Remade as Wizardry Gold in 1996)
  • Nemesis: The Wizardry Adventure (1996)
  • Wizardry 8
    Wizardry 8
    Wizardry 8 is the eighth and final title in the Wizardry series of computer role-playing games by Sir-Tech. It is the third in the Dark Savant trilogy, which includes Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge and Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant...

    (2001)


The first three games are a trilogy, with similar settings, plots, and gameplay mechanics. Bane of the Cosmic Forge, Crusaders of the Dark Savant and Wizardry 8 formed a second trilogy, with settings and gameplay mechanics that differed greatly from the first trilogy.

The fourth game, The Return of Werdna, (Werdna being Andrew, one of the game's developers, spelled backwards) 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 also the first Wizardry title where one saw enemies in advance, and thus could try to avoid them.

Collections

The following compilations were also released for various platforms:
  • Wizardry Trilogy (1987) - the first three Wizardry games. Released for Apple II and C64.
  • Wizardry Trilogy 2 (1994) - compilation of Wizardry V, VI and VII—all developed by D. W. Bradley. Released for DOS.
  • Wizardry: Llylgamyn Saga (1997) - an enhanced remake
    Enhanced remake
    A video game remake is a game closely adapted from an earlier title, usually for the purpose of modernizing a game for newer hardware and contemporary audiences. Typically, a remake shares essentially the same title, fundamental gameplay concepts, and story elements of the original game...

     of the first three Wizardry games for PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Windows.
  • The Ultimate Wizardry Archives (1998) - compilation of the first seven Wizardry games plus the remake of the seventh game, Wizardry Gold. Released for Windows and DOS.

Series in Japan

When Wizardry was first introduced in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, the lack of available information as well as a low quality of translation led to the game being far more seriously interpreted by Japanese players due to overlooking in-game jokes and parodies. For example, in early games Blade Cusinart was introduced as "a legendary sword made by the famous blacksmith,[sic] Cusinart" as Cuisinart
Cuisinart
Cuisinart is a brand for small kitchen appliances, especially the food processor of the same name, one of the first to become popular in the United States. It was founded by Carl Sontheimer in 1971, and became a leading brand in the United States and Canada....

 and its food processors were virtually unknown in Japan and thus its meaning was misinterpreted. However, this misconception appealed to early computer gamers who were looking for something different and made the Wizardry series popular. Conversely, the fourth game, The Return of Werdna, was poorly received, as, lacking the knowledge of subcultures necessary to solving the game, Japanese players had no chance of figuring out some puzzles.

The popularity of Wizardry in Japan led to the making of various light novel
Light novel
A is a style of Japanese novel primarily targeting junior high and high school students . The term "light novel" is a wasei-eigo, or a Japanese term formed from words in the English language. Light novels are often called or for short...

s, manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 comics, Japanese pen-and-paper role-playing games
Japanese role-playing game
Japanese role-playing games made their first appearance during the late 1980s. Today, there are hundreds of Japanese-designed games as well as several translated games...

, an original video animation
Original video animation
, abbreviated as media , are animated films and series made specially for release in home-video formats. The term originated in relation to Japanese animation...

, and several original console sequels, spinoffs and ports. Most have been released only in Japan.

Ports of the original scenarios
  • Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Macintosh, MZ-2500
    Sharp MZ
    The Sharp MZ is a series of personal computers sold in Japan and Europe by Sharp beginning in 1978.-Overview:...

    , X1/turbo
    Sharp X1
    The X1 is a series of home computer released by Sharp Corporation from 1982 to 1988. It was based on a Z80 CPU.Despite the fact that the Computer Division of Sharp Corporation had released the MZ series, suddenly the Television Division released a new computer series called the X1...

    , FM-7
    FM-7
    FM-7 is a home computer released in 1982 in Japan.The Fujitsu FM-7 was Fujitsu's first entry into the Japanese home computer market, and for their debut computer, they chose to come out with a 6809-based personal computer very similar to Radio Shack's Color Computer.-Hardware:*Two MC 68B09 CPUs @...

    , FM-77, PC-8801, PC-9801, MSX2
    MSX
    MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation...

    , NES
    Nintendo Entertainment System
    The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...

    , Game Boy Color
    Game Boy Color
    The is Nintendo's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than...

    , WonderSwan Color, Cell phone
    Mobile phone
    A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

    , C64
    Commodore 64
    The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

    /C128
    Commodore 128
    The Commodore 128 home/personal computer was the last 8-bit machine commercially released by Commodore Business Machines...

    )
  • Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds (Macintosh, MZ-2500, X1/turbo, FM-7, FM-77, PC-8801, PC-9801, MSX2, NES, Game Boy Color, C64)
  • Wizardry I & II (PC Engine)
  • Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn (X1/turbo, FM-7, FM-77, PC-8801, PC-9801, MSX2, Famicom, Game Boy Color, C64)
  • Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna (X1/turbo, FM-7, FM-77, PC-8801, PC-9801)
  • Wizardry III & IV (PC Engine)
  • Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom (FM Towns
    FM Towns
    The FM Towns system is a Japanese PC variant, built by Fujitsu from February 1989 to the summer of 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and PC games, but later became more compatible with regular PCs...

    , PC-8801, PC-9801, SNES
    Super Nintendo Entertainment System
    The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...

    , PC Engine, C64)
  • Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge (FM Towns, PC-9801, 98note, J-3100, SNES)
  • Wizardry VI & VII (Sega Saturn
    Sega Saturn
    The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console that was first released by Sega on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe...

    )
  • Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant (PC-9801, PC-9821, PlayStation
    PlayStation
    The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...

    )
  • Wizardry Nemesis (Microsoft Windows
    Microsoft Windows
    Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

    , Sega Saturn, 1996)
  • Wizardry: Story of Llylgamyn (SNES, 1999)
  • Wizardry: Llylgamyn Saga (Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, 2000)
  • Wizardry: New Age of Llylgamyn (Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, 2000)


Spin-offs
  • Wizardry Gaiden 1: Suffering of the Queen (Game Boy
    Game Boy
    The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...

    , 1991)
  • Wizardry Gaiden 2: Curse of the Ancient Emperor (Game Boy, 1992)
  • Wizardry Gaiden 3: Scripture of the Dark (Game Boy, 1993)
  • Wizardry Gaiden 4: Throb of the Demon's Heart (SNES, 1996)
  • Wizardry: Dimguil (PlayStation, 2000)
  • Wizardry Empire (PlayStation, Game Boy Color, 2000)
  • Wizardry Empire II: Fukkatsu no Tsue (PlayStation, Game Boy Color, 2002)
  • Wizardry Empire III (PlayStation 2
    PlayStation 2
    The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...

    , 2003)
  • Wizardry Chronicle (Microsoft Windows)
  • Wizardry Summoner (Game Boy Advance
    Game Boy Advance
    The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...

    , 2001) published by Natsume
    Natsume Co., Ltd
    is a Japanese video game developer and publisher in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan founded on October 20, 1987. Its American branch, Natsume Inc., is located in Burlingame, California...

  • Busin: Wizardry Alternative
    Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land
    Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001. It is a spin-off of the Wizardry series of role-playing video games. It was released in Japan, under the title Busin: Wizardry Alternative, by Atlus and in North America by Atlus.-Gameplay:Like the other games in the...

    (Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land in North America) (PlayStation 2, 2001)
  • Busin 0: Wizardry Alternative Neo (PlayStation 2)
  • Wizardry Traditional (Cell phone)
  • Wizardry Traditional 2 (Cell phone)
  • Wizardry Xth Academy of Frontier (PlayStation 2, 2005)
  • Wizardry Asterisk: Hiiro no Fūin (Nintendo DS
    Nintendo DS
    The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

    , 2005)
  • Wizardry Gaiden: Prisoners of the Battles (PlayStation 2, 2005)
  • Wizardry Summoner (PlayStation 2, 2005)
  • Wizardry Xth2 UNLIMITED STUDENT (PlayStation 2, 2006)
  • Wizardry Empire III: Haō no Keifu (PSP, 2007)
  • Wizardry Torawareshi Tamashii no Meikyū (Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls
    Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls
    Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls is a video game developed by Acquire and published by Xseed Games for the PlayStation 3. The game is a localized version of the Japanese game originally released in December 2009. Although originally developed for the Apple II and released in the U.S. in 1981, the...

    ) (PSN, 2009)
  • Wizardry Seimei no Kusabi (Wizardry: Pledge of Life) (DS, 2009)
  • Wizardry Bōkyaku no Isan (DS, 2010)


Yuji Horii
Yuji Horii
is a Japanese video game designer and scenario writer best known as the creator of the Dragon Quest series of console role-playing games, as well as the visual novel adventure game Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken.-History:Dragon Quest is recognized as the first role-playing game to posit the idea...

 drew inspiration from the Wizardry, Mugen no Shinzou (Heart of Phantasm), and Ultima series of games for making the popular Japanese role-playing game Dragon Quest
Dragon Warrior
Dragon Warrior, known as in Japan, is the first role-playing video game  in the Dragon Quest media franchise. It was developed by Chunsoft for the Nintendo Entertainment System and published by Enix in Japan in 1986...

. Horii's obsession with Wizardry was manifested as an easter egg
Easter egg (media)
Image:Carl Oswald Rostosky - Zwei Kaninchen und ein Igel 1861.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Example of Easter egg hidden within imagerect 467 383 539 434 desc none...

 in one of his earlier games, The PORTOPIA Serial Murder Case. In a dungeon-crawling portion of the adventure game, a note on the wall reads "MONSTER SURPRISED YOU." The English fan translation added a sidenote explaining "This is Yuji Horii wishing he could have made this game an RPG like Wizardry!".

WizPlus

In 1982, California-based Datamost
Datamost
Datamost was a software design company founded by David Gordon and based in Chatsworth, California. Datamost operated in the early 1980s producing games and other software mainly for the Apple II, Commodore 64 and Atari platforms, with some for the IBM PC...

 published a utility for the Wizardry series entitled WizPlus. The program allowed players to edit most aspects of their Wizardry I and II characters, including maxing out skills and attributes.

Legacy

Wizardry inspired many clones and served as a template for computer role-playing games. Some notable series that trace their look and feel
Look and feel
In software design, look and feel is a term used in respect of a graphical user interface and comprises aspects of its design, including elements such as colors, shapes, layout, and typefaces , as well as the behavior of dynamic elements such as buttons, boxes, and menus...

 to Wizardry include The Bard's Tale
Bard's Tale (1985)
The Bard's Tale is a fantasy role-playing video game created by Interplay Productions in and distributed by Electronic Arts...

and Might and Magic
Might and Magic
Might and Magic is a series of role-playing video games from New World Computing, which in 1996 became a subsidiary of The 3DO Company...

. Wizardry also established the command-driven battle system with a still image of the monster being fought that would be emulated in later games, such as The Bard's Tale, Dragon Quest
Dragon Quest
, published as Dragon Warrior in North America until 2005,Due to the inconsistent usage by sources since Square Enix obtained the naming rights to Dragon Quest in North America. Dragon Quest has been used by sources to refer to games released solely under the Dragon Warrior titles...

and Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy
is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix . The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy role-playing video games , but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise...

. Following a convention established by the PLATO
PLATO
PLATO was the first generalized computer assisted instruction system, and, by the late 1970s, comprised several thousand terminals worldwide on nearly a dozen different networked mainframe computers...

 dungeon games Moria
Moria (PLATO)
Moria is a dungeon crawl style computer role-playing game first developed for the PLATO system around 1975, with copyright dates listed as 1978 and 1984...

, Avatar and Oubliette, it was the first game for home computers to adapt the now-familiar WASD set of keys for moving forward and turning left and right (the S was not used for movement; it updated the status display). The party-based combat in Wizardry also inspired Richard Garriot to include a similar party-based system in Ultima III: Exodus.

Wizardry was the first game to feature what would later be called prestige classes. Aside from the traditional classes of Fighter, Mage, Priest
Cleric (character class)
The Cleric, Priest, or Bishop is a character class in Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy role-playing games. The cleric is a healer, usually a priest and a holy warrior, originally modeled on or inspired by the Military Orders...

, Thief
Thief (character class)
The Thief or Rogue is a character class in many role-playing games, including Dungeons & Dragons, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft and many MMORPGs. Thieves are usually stealthy and dextrous characters able to disarm traps, pick locks, and perform backstabs from hiding...

 and Bard
Bard
In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...

, players could take Bishop, Lord, Valkyrie, Ninja
Ninja (Dungeons & Dragons)
The ninja is a playable character class in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition :...

 and Samurai
Samurai (Dungeons & Dragons)
The samurai is a playable character class in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition :The samurai was introduced in the original first edition Oriental Adventures book....

 if they had the right attributes and alignment. In the case of Lord and Ninja, at least in the first episodes of the sequel, it was impossible to receive all the attributes needed when first rolling characters
Character creation
Character creation is the process of defining a game character or other character. Typically, a character's individual strengths and weaknesses are represented by a set of statistics. Games with a largely fictional setting may include traits such as race and class...

, so the player would need to gain levels to achieve those attributes and then cross classes, thus they can be considered proper prestige classes. Wizardry VI allowed starting with any class given the player could invest enough time during the random character attribute generation.

Wizardry is the major inspiration to the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

 title The Dark Spire
The Dark Spire
The Dark Spire is a role-playing game developed by Success for the Nintendo DS. It was released on April 14, 2009 in North America which was published by Atlus and May 22, 2008 in Japan.-Gameplay:...

. While the game follows its own story and maps, much of the game utilizes the same game play mechanics, even going as far as adding in a "classic" mode that removed all of the game's graphics, replacing it with a wireframe environment, 8-bit-style sprites for monsters and characters, and chiptune
Chiptune
A chiptune, also known as chip music, is synthesized electronic music often produced with the sound chips of vintage computers and video game consoles, as well as with other methods such as emulation. In the early 1980s, personal computers became cheaper and more accessible than they had previously...

 music. The game's publisher, Atlus
Atlus
is a Japanese computer and video game developer, publisher, and distributor based in Tokyo, Japan, best known for developing the console role-playing game franchise Megami Tensei. The first Megami Tensei was a Nintendo Entertainment System video game published by Namco based on a trilogy of...

, also published another Wizardry spin-off, Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land
Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land
Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001. It is a spin-off of the Wizardry series of role-playing video games. It was released in Japan, under the title Busin: Wizardry Alternative, by Atlus and in North America by Atlus.-Gameplay:Like the other games in the...

.

In the 1980s, Wizardry also entertained fans that included celebrity figures such as Robin Williams
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...

, Harry Anderson
Harry Anderson
Harry Laverne Anderson is an American actor and magician.-Early life:Born in Newport, Rhode Island, Anderson was a street magician before becoming an actor.-Career:...

, and the Crown Prince of Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...

. The latter even called Sir-Tech personally on the phone.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK