1982 · Adventure · Shooter

Sid the Spellbinder!

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Released: 31 December 1982
Platforms: Magnavox Odyssey 2 Odyssey 2 / Videopac G7000
Genres: Adventure Shooter
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action Fantasy

About

Sid the Spellbinder!, also known as S.I.D. the Spellbinder!, is an 1982 educational fixed shooter video game released by North American Philips for the Magnavox Odyssey². It was developed by Sam Overton, the manager of the recently founded Odyssey Software Development Group. It was designed to help children aged six to ten learn English spelling and was designed in association with the College of Education at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. It was also designed to make use of "The Voice of Odyssey²", a recently released expansion module that produces a synthesized voice during gameplay.

Players control a missile cannon that shoots at a slowly approaching centipede named Sid. Players have to shoot Sid without losing all their missiles, which they can receive more of by answering spelling questions correctly in-between rounds. It came with a "Sid the Spellbinder Word Book" which provided all the words used in game in context so players could study. While some criticize it for being to lenient and the voice synthesis being to hard to understand, most critics praised it highly as both a fun game and a good educational tool.

›Story

Sid the Spellbinder! was one of the three games specifically designed to use the resources of The Voice. It is some sort of Space Invaders variation, in which instead of shooting space invaders, the player has to shoot Sid the Spellbinder, a giant segmented snake. Sid comes snaking down the screen and the player has to shoot its segments before it reaches the openings at the lower sides of the screen.

The player starts with 30 missiles (20 in skill level 2) and scores in an arithmetic progression: one point for the first segment, two for the second, three for the third and so on, up to 10. If the player's score is below 200, Sid will align its remaining segments together whenever it goes off the screen. If the player's score is 200 or more, the gaps will remain making it harder to the player to shoot Sid. If Sid gets into those openings, it will eat the missiles in the reserve.

Sid eats five missiles for each of its segments left when it enters the opening.

If the player hits all of Sid's segments, or if Sid gets to the lower end of the screen and leaves the player with some missiles after eating, the game changes into a spelling game. The computer will speak a word and the player has to type it in. Each round has 3 words to be spelled and the player has two chances to spell each word. The player earns 10 missiles (5 in skill level 2) for each word spelled correctly. The game is over when all missiles are gone.

Keywords

worm
space invaders

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Sid the Spellbinder! is a fixed shooter that intersperses its level with spelling challenges. It was designed for children aged six to ten. Sid is a centipede that crawls across the screen slowly working his way down to the player.

The player uses a missile cannon fixed to the bottom of the screen to shoot away segments of Sid's body. If Sid reaches the bottom of the screen, he will eat five of the players missiles for each segment that remains. The game ends when the player is out of missiles.

Development

Sid the Spellbinder! was designed by Sam Overton. ), then called Magnavox, during the initial development of the Odyssey². Following its launch, he left to work for Milton Bradley.

In 1982, Overton was rehired to lead a new software development team known as the Odyssey Software Development Group or Odyssey West. Overton developed Sid the Spellbinder! while leading this new group. It was designed to be compatiable with "The Voice of Odyssey²" expansion module which provided synthesized sound and voice clips for the player released in September 1982.

Reception

Editor of The Logical Gamer, Alan R. Bechtold thought it was "an excellent game" that used the Voice module well and is a good learning tool. Though he didn't expect that adults would get any enjoyment out of it. Bechtold's co-reviewer Mike Wilson agreed, though he cautioned the voice was hard to understand at first.

He also gave it to his seven year old daughter who reportedly enjoyed it. Jim Clark of Videogaming Illustrated, thought it was a "brilliant melding of keyboard, Voice, video game action, and the print medium" and thought it should be "required software in all elementary schools." C. Meade added that he thought it should be in high schools as well.