Wizball

Wizball is set in the once colourful realms of Wizworld, where the evil Zark has stolen all the colour, making it dull and grey. It is up to Wiz and his cat Nifta to restore it to its former brilliance as Wizball and Catellite.

Wizball is a scrolling shooter inspired by Gradius with an additional collection dynamic. It is a horizontally scrolling game taking place over eight levels, which involves navigating around a landscape and shooting at sprites. However, the aim of the game is to collect droplets of coloured paint to colour the level. Each level starts off as monochromatic, drawn in three shades of grey, and needs three colours (red, blue, and green) to be collected to complete it.

The music in the Commodore 64 version was composed by Martin Galway, with input from Jon Hare and Chris Yates.

In an interview from 1987, the developers said development of Wizball was originally started before their previously launched shooter Parallax, but it was put on hold since they managed to code the parallax scrolling routine used in that game. They also said they were trying to present new concepts in a familiar way, and they wanted a company to release it that could give it "a bit of hype".

The game has been heralded as one of the best ever original games to appear on the Commodore 64. It is noted for its originality and use of the C64 hardware via graphics, sound and general presentation. The control method has also been described as innovative, initially awkward, but adding to the playability when mastered. The readers of Retro Gamer in 2011 selected it as the second best game ever made for the platform:

Quite possibly one of the most beautifully crafted C64 games that you’ll ever have the privilege to play.

In 1992, Sensible Software developed a sequel Wizkid: The Story of Wizball II published by Ocean Software. Although the story in Wizkid continues directly from Wizball, the actual games are only superficially related to each other.

A fan remake for Microsoft Windows and macOS, based on the Commodore 64 version, was released in 2007.