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 player, a wizard who has taken the form of a green ball, can navigate between the levels through portals. Initially, the wizard only has access to the first three levels, but completing levels gains access to further levels. Each level has bouncing spheres of different colours, and shooting them releases droplets, which may be collected. Each level needs a different colour to be added, which can be composed by collecting enough quantities of the correct colours. On later levels, the spheres of paint start shooting bullets, adding to the challenge. The wizard himself cannot collect paint droplets, and is initially only capable of very limited movement. The wizard bounces up and down at a fixed rate, with the player only controlling a speed of rotation, and thus how fast it will move horizontally after touching the ground. Collecting pearls (which appear when certain types of enemies have been shot) gives the player tokens that can be used to "buy" enhancements, such as greater control over movement and improved firepower. It also allows the option to summon the companion known as Catellite . Catellite (ostensibly the wizard's cat ) that is also spherical in form normally follows the wizard, but it can also be moved independently by holding down the fire button whilst moving the joystick (which meanwhile renders the wizard uncontrollable). Only Catellite is capable of collecting paint droplets and the player has to use it to do so. In the two-player co-op mode, Catellite is controlled by the second player.