BEHOLD, THE ATARI KUSOGE
this is some unbalanced bullshit and I'm here for it. The game basically consists of a shmooving stick figure known as the wizard fighting for his life against the "imp", a whirlwind-looking entity that eternally stalks our poor wizardly friend like a tropical hurricane. Unfortunately for Hurricane Imp, our Wizard must be a Florida resident because he's packing heat and can shoot the storm as a way to deal damage. If the Wizard's damage reaches 100, the Imp wins and the game is over. If the Imp's damage reaches 100, the wizard gets a kill point and a health refresh and the Imp respawns except with more health. It's really weird that it's not just a round-based versus game as it has the weird kill score counter tacked on but like sure. It does fundamentally make it an inevitable losing game for the wizard as there's really no win state for the wizard whatsoever, so that's cool.
That's not even to mention the actual imbalance of the gameplay. It's kind of like combat in that there are two bodies that shoot each other until one stops moving but in this game it's really more of a predator-and-prey dynamic. The Imp is completely invisible unless it's either close to the wizard or fires an attack, so the wizard really has no idea when or where danger could come from. The wizards shots also have a cooldown of like a second or two whereas the imp sure as hell doesn't so the wizard basically has to dodge and weave aiming shots against an invisible predator hunting them down whereas the imp just has to get up close and mash button to win EZ. Also the more damage the wizard sustains the slower he moves just for good measure. It's so comically weighted against the wizards favor that I can't help but be entertained by it. If for some reason the wizard needs even more things to worry about there's also the option to add a flame on the map to defend that serves no purpose outside of getting an additional hitbox the imp can use to deal damage to the wizards health bar.
Unlike a lot of versus-oriented 2600 games there is indeed a single player mode where the AI controls the imp, but really the most fun I've had with it is through playing with a friend as it just turns the game into an inescapable horror movie where one person gets to play the monster. Despite its wildly imbalanced nature I've happened to have a lot of good times just shooting the shit playing this with someone making house rules to give the wizard some kind of thing to aim for and whatnot. I do wish there was more than one map but what can ya do. The game wasn't actually ever released on a cart in its actual time as it was supposedly to be one of the last 2600 games before development shifted to the 5200 but got cancelled for like not being complex enough of a game or something like that, so I kinda get the lack of pretty much anything here. Despite the fact that it's probably much more of a "toy" than a "game" given how loose the gameplay conditions are, I've somehow managed to have a lot of fun with the 2P mode so I can't say I'm not a wizard fan.
this is some unbalanced bullshit and I'm here for it. The game basically consists of a shmooving stick figure known as the wizard fighting for his life against the "imp", a whirlwind-looking entity that eternally stalks our poor wizardly friend like a tropical hurricane. Unfortunately for Hurricane Imp, our Wizard must be a Florida resident because he's packing heat and can shoot the storm as a way to deal damage. If the Wizard's damage reaches 100, the Imp wins and the game is over. If the Imp's damage reaches 100, the wizard gets a kill point and a health refresh and the Imp respawns except with more health. It's really weird that it's not just a round-based versus game as it has the weird kill score counter tacked on but like sure. It does fundamentally make it an inevitable losing game for the wizard as there's really no win state for the wizard whatsoever, so that's cool.
That's not even to mention the actual imbalance of the gameplay. It's kind of like combat in that there are two bodies that shoot each other until one stops moving but in this game it's really more of a predator-and-prey dynamic. The Imp is completely invisible unless it's either close to the wizard or fires an attack, so the wizard really has no idea when or where danger could come from. The wizards shots also have a cooldown of like a second or two whereas the imp sure as hell doesn't so the wizard basically has to dodge and weave aiming shots against an invisible predator hunting them down whereas the imp just has to get up close and mash button to win EZ. Also the more damage the wizard sustains the slower he moves just for good measure. It's so comically weighted against the wizards favor that I can't help but be entertained by it. If for some reason the wizard needs even more things to worry about there's also the option to add a flame on the map to defend that serves no purpose outside of getting an additional hitbox the imp can use to deal damage to the wizards health bar.
Unlike a lot of versus-oriented 2600 games there is indeed a single player mode where the AI controls the imp, but really the most fun I've had with it is through playing with a friend as it just turns the game into an inescapable horror movie where one person gets to play the monster. Despite its wildly imbalanced nature I've happened to have a lot of good times just shooting the shit playing this with someone making house rules to give the wizard some kind of thing to aim for and whatnot. I do wish there was more than one map but what can ya do. The game wasn't actually ever released on a cart in its actual time as it was supposedly to be one of the last 2600 games before development shifted to the 5200 but got cancelled for like not being complex enough of a game or something like that, so I kinda get the lack of pretty much anything here. Despite the fact that it's probably much more of a "toy" than a "game" given how loose the gameplay conditions are, I've somehow managed to have a lot of fun with the 2P mode so I can't say I'm not a wizard fan.