Wizorb

Wizorb
81
Metacritic
76
Steam
79.452
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$1.49
Release date
14 March 2012
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
76 (520 votes)

The once peaceful Kingdom of Gorudo is threatened by an evil presence. The only hope for salvation is Cyrus!

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Wizorb system requirements

  • OS:Windows XP or later
  • Processor:Dual-core processor (Intel Dual Core 2.0 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 5200+ 2.6 GHz)
  • Memory:1 GB RAM
  • DirectX®:9.0c
  • Hard Drive:250 MB HD space
  • Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Recommended:

Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
Updated
App type
Steam APP ID
207420
Platforms
Windows PC
Mac
Linux
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Rico
Rico

Very nice brick breaking game. The added mechanics on top of the classic brick breaking mechanics really add up for a genuine fun gameplay.

Pros:
* There's a magic bar which you fill up with brick drops; magic is used to cast mainly 4 different spells, fireball, wind, cannon ball and fairy ball (you move the ball and it also slows it down).
* There are bonus rooms and stores you enter by colliding the ball against doors in the levels. You must collect keys in order to open these doors.
* Enemies and boss battles.
* You help rebuild a village with money donations in exchange of power ups for the next level, e.g. a security wall.

Cons:
* There is no in-game tutorial that explains all this to you. The explanations can be found in the settings though.
* Intense and a bit unfair difficulty ramp in the last world and boss.

Not many cons to mention. I'm really enjoying the game :D

saz
saz

interesting little arcade-y puzzle game

the only problem is its hard for games like these to keep you interested for too long.

still, worth playing.

Patcoola
Patcoola

Brick breaker goes fantasy with wizards, monsters, and bosses. This is the first brick breaker I’ve seen with a story and plot. You play as a wizard that volunteers to rebuild a destroyed village and rescue lost children. As far as brick breakers go, I feel that this is very original.

Some issues I’ve found:
1) Only play with the mouse, all other controls suck.
2) Some levels can feel frustrating with obstacles.

🍐 TimmySteve
🍐 TimmySteve

Wizorb is a pretty solid game. I recommend it if incredible sprites and artwork will carry you through a very difficult game. I cannot recommend it, however, if you're looking for a casual puzzle game. Or even a difficult puzzle game. Due to a number of strange design choices, the game is a gauntlet of very frustrating puzzles that you will either embrace or hate.
In this breakout clone, you use your "wand" to bounce orbs around the stage to break blocks and damage enemies. Using your limited magic meter which can be refilled by potion powerups, you can perform the expected maneuvers: shoot a fireball from your cursor and break a block, fire a beefed up orb that will break multiple blocks, control the direction of your orb by moving the mouse, and so on.
Again, the graphics are stunning. The animation is smooth and buttery, from the monsters you'll encounter to the charming and lively sprites you see when exploring town. The environments feel diverse and colorful. Sound design is good, though there are a few music tracks that are a little annoying. The castle music is particularly arythmic.
Wizorb is supposed to feel like a throwback and the difficulty is tuned to become more and more punishing, and on both accounts it definitely delivers. This game will make you feel like you've just shoved a grey cartridge into a game console and snatched up a controller with a d-pad.
Your progression is measured by an overworld map, also beautifully presented. And that's about all the progression you'll enjoy. You can throw your money at a ruined town and watch it rebuild, but the rewards they give you are absolutely paltry. Powerups that you can purchase from shops only last until you lose a life. This raises the stakes for every encounter--if you slip up, you definitely feel the loss. For beating the grueling dungeon challenges, there is really nothing by way of a reward to help you adapt to the next challenge. I wish there was some way of getting even small perks--Increase your magic meter, make your orb permanitely hit harder, unlock new abilities. You get nothing to help you along as the difficulty ramps up. It's the same gameplay from dungeon to dungeon.
An even more baffling choice is that every dungeon sells the same powerups in its shop. You can only get the multiball powerup in some areas, and the "longer wand" powerup ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) is only available in others. This consistency makes the game far less enjoyable to replay. There's no randomness, and the only clever powerup combos available are the ones the game maker decided to provide.
I don't understand the decision to turn the game into a series of gauntlets. When you begin a dungeon, you'll need to beat 10 or more stages consecutively. If you run out of lives, you are allowed 3 "continues" which gives you a healthy safety net to complete even the most difficult missions, if you can muster the patience to do the failed level over again. You cannot save your progress or quit between levels. The result is that Wizorb feels like a challenge of willpower. This cranks up the intensity, but there is so much of a time investment in each dungeon run that failure is absolutely crushing. Combine this with mechanics that are designed to frustrate and it's a tough game to recommend, and an even more daunting challenge to beat.
Having played lots of Breakout clones, the first problem I encountered was that the cursor feels different. The orb does not bounce off the cursor the way I expect it to; it never occurred to me that most Breakout clones are consistent about the angles at which the ball bounces off your cursor, and this game breaks my expectation of the genre. Another baffling decision is that you cannot remap the keybindings. You can control the cursor with WASD, the arrows keys, or your mouse. Left and right click activate your abilities. If you want to use the kayboard, your abilities are on J and K. Why J and K? I have no idea. Maybe the controls make more sense on a gamepad.
I can forgive the game for having its own style, though I was often frustrated by how little control I seemed to have in fine-tuning my shots. In the later levels, you routinely need to bounce an orb into a one block wide gap. The problem here is that the game does not allow you to hit the ball in a straight line. Even when you hit it dead center in the middle of your wand, it always deviates slightly left or right. This means that sometimes it is impossible to land an orb in a particular spot from an angle where it seems like you'd be able to. Now try to get the orb into a one-wide gap while the ball is moving at top speed. Whether or not it goes in is at that point a matter of blind luck because the ball does not travel in a straight path.
Keeping every movement of the orb strictly angled is the game's method of eliminating infinite loops. If the ball always moves at an angle, it will never get stuck forever (it can get close, but it will eventually work itself out). However, as the game progresses and there are more unbreakable blocks on the board, it becomes increasingly common to get the orb stuck bouncing in a long, circuitious pattern. Plenty of breakout clones I've played have a "speed up" button for just this reason--instead of waiting it out, you can make things go faster. The absense of such a feature here makes some stages take an unbearably long time, especially when the orb gets stuck among unbreakable blocks or when there are only a few blocks left.
Some stages have colored rubies that change color every time they're hit with an orb. In order to break them, you need to turn them all the same color. I have no problem with it in theory--it's a challenge of marksmanship. Mess up, or hit the wrong block, or get a bad bounce, and you'll have to go for a different color match. Because the orb always travels at an angle, however, trying to hit one particular ruby while leaving the others alone can be nearly impossible. Depending on how the orb bounces before it hits your wand, it may be impossible to hit your target from the position you've chosen even if it's a straight shot.
Wizorb is not a bad game. It is very challenging, and it will satisfy players looking for a puzzle game that will truely test them. Because of some frustrating design choices that stretch out the game, however, I can't recommend it for someone who is looking for a light, consistently fun experience.

TLDR: Wizorb looks beautiful and delivers on its promise of old school atmosphere, but it will likely pose a difficult test of your fortitude and patience.

2nd Class Janitor - Wilco
2nd Class Jani…

Tags: Casual - Brickbreak & Pinball
Addtiional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library

TLDR: Pixelated engine. Dubious ball physics. Gimmicky powerups. Cheap deaths and retry oriented. Unfun.

jb27
jb27

This breakout style game is the best I've ever played. The 8-bit style sprites and musics dimensions are interesting. It's quite easy but it take time to reach the end. If you like arkanoid / breakout style games, it's a must have.

Lannie
Lannie

cute little game with great pixel art and sound design. Some game mechanic elements are a bit questionable and make levels way longer than they need to be, but it's still a good experience for the price and play time.

HEH HAH A BUTT
HEH HAH A BUTT

This studio has always been fantastic at creating attractive looking graphics, but despite all the lovely window dressing this game has some failures on a very basic level. The ball accelerates very quickly past the actual ability of your paddle to keep up, and the spells and powerups can't bridge the gap. Hard to screw up the classic Breakout formula but the poorly tuned mechanics make this more or less unplayable.

castles in limbo
castles in limbo

Really fun game! It has a great "NES" feel to it and the spells and enemies are a pretty good addition to the Arkanoid formula.

The second active spell while the ball is touching the wand (when the ball gets wings) resets the ball speed. Thank me later.

JG Wentsworth
JG Wentsworth

The later levels really highlight what a intolerable grindy slog the game becomes where power-ups prevent you from using your better spells, the invisible walls on soft edges drive you mad, and it's more advantageous to commit suicide and reset your ball then watch it bounce around for 10+ minutes before it actually touches a brick. I got this on sale and almost wish I didn't.

cstrife89
cstrife89

You should try this game if you've ever played Breakout/Arkanoid/clones and thought, "Yeah, this is okay, but I'd rather play something else." And if you would PREFER to play those over other games, buy this right now. Even if it's not on sale. I mean, c'mon, it's three bucks!

For me, a lot of Breakout games become frustrating or dull, primarily because of choke points in level designs. This game has some of those, but it also gives you *permanent* tools for dealing with them, instead of forcing you to pray for a power-up. True, you have a usage meter that restricts how much/often you can use them, but refills come often enough (at least early on) that it's not too aggravating. You can shoot out bricks, bring in some wind, make the ball plow through breakable bricks (as opposed to the normal bouncing), and straight-up move the ball to where you want. Each technique consumes more of your magic meter, but you otherwise have total control over when you want to activate them.

Plus, there are shops in some levels (which are often locked, but you can unlock them by touching the door with the ball while you possess a key; or just hit a switch) and bonus areas in others. Each offer potions to refill your magic meter, extra lives, stuff like that. Also, at the starting village, you can donate money to the citizens to help them rebuild from a monster raid, which I'm guessing will result in rewards and shops later on.

The levels sets can drag on a bit, but you're given continues for if you run out of lives (you simply restart the current level if you need to use one), and you can save and quit in the middle of a set. Each set ends with a boss fight, and I like how these play out! The first one, at least, has no bricks - just two basic monsters and one large monster with a simple attack pattern. Although I won with ease, it was an engaging first fight, and it leaves me eager to see what's in store.

The game has keyboard controls, but the paddle moves too slowly to catch the ball once it speeds up enough (the ball gets faster the longer it's in play). I strongly recommend a mouse - or a TrackPoint (pointing stick), if you have a laptop with one. (Touchpad players need not apply.)

I really like the visual design. The sprites are fluidly animated, yet the color pallete is reminiscent of 8-bit game machines (I think of the NES, but YMMV). The frame rate is pretty smooth on my 2009 ThinkPad, never stuttering in my 45-minute first play. However, I don't care much for the music (part of that is surely just my tastes, but there are plenty of 8-bittish chiptunes that I've enjoyed over the years; this game's just aren't among them), so I guess this is a good game to utilize Steam's music player with if you find yourself agreeing with me. (You can adjust the game's music and sound effect volumes separately.)

Also, cross-platform support (especially for Linux!) is a big plus in my book. And like I said, the game's cheap. Give it a shot!

CaCaMan55
CaCaMan55

Great game! It's an Arkanoid/Breakout type game in the art style of Zelda: Link to the Past and certainly has that SNES 16-bit feel. It's so well done in fact, you could almost convince me it was an original SNES release. It's definately a steal at $2.99. I played originally a couple years back on the Xbox 360 (Indie title) and was forced to use a gamepad. Using a mouse on the PC the second time around is definately an upgrade. Highly recommended!

Slapdash
Slapdash

A surprising amount of content and replayability for a game so affordably priced. Extremely good quality, too. It's obvious that a lot of love went into making it.

Jmoo232
Jmoo232

Really fun little game. It is extremely easy on the normal difficultly I ended the game with 70 lives.

Big Wing Boy
Big Wing Boy

This is Arachnoid rip-off heaven and I fucking love it. Great game, good play mechanics, fun to scream at when you lose your orb. What more could I ask for?

actionBastard64
actionBastard64

A good example of taking a proven gameplay concept and presenting it in a new and interesting way. It won't win any awards for originality but what it does it does well. Definitely worth the price.

Minorthreatt
Minorthreatt

Check out my Steam Curator page, "Minorthreatt Gaming Reviews." I have the most organized and extensive genre lists on Steam! Be sure to "FOLLOW" for more of my recommendations: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31339849-Minorthreatt-Gaming-Revi…

The Short of it: Retro inspired "brick breaker" arcade game, but with lots of fun, unexpected additions. There's a world map, and a town you rebuild with gold earned in game levels, so has RPG elements. Worth the $

nefi
nefi

I you like Arkanoid there's not much to go wrong with Wizorb. It's Arkanoid with colorful and cute graphics, likable characters and boss fights. There's even a tiny plot going here which gives us a sense of progress from one stage to the other. Surprisingly there's a lot of stuff to do around the Kingdom of Gorudo besides breaking bricks with a bouncing ball. There are children that need to be rescued, people need help rebuilding their homes and a homeless guy who lost his tent somewhere. There's also a merchant selling stuff you have no idea how he got hold of it in the first place. Better not to ask.

If you're really serious about it, hard mode is indeed quite hard so if you're an Arkanoid fan you can go in expecting a fair challenge. The gameplay is pretty good as well as the music and the art. It makes Wizorb quite an enjoyable experience. My only trouble with it is the brick placement in some stages. There are times where you have this annoying brick hidden behind an unbreakable structure and you'll be bouncing your ball around the stage for a long time before finally hitting it just right. It makes some stages superficially long and a couple of them can get a bit annoying because of it. It really isn't that big of a deal though and still quite a fun game.

Salarn
Salarn

https://youtu.be/modhivfpg-c

Balance issues, especially losing progress, is the main weakness of this cute styled brick breaking experience. A smoother experience with gradual improvements would have gone a long way.

Jerbear Gaming
Jerbear Gaming

Gonna be honest this is an awesome spin on arkanoid. But everytime i try to go back to village it exits me out of the game which is a big problem for me but i did get it on sale so it is not so bad. I would say if you can buy on console cause i cannot see it being a problem their i hope but i do love games by this dev like "flinthook" had me addicted for a while. Basically buy it if it is on sale and you can deal with that bug. Tribute please fix this

Evilnapkin
Evilnapkin

Trailer says it all, Block Breaker with magic, powerups and some light RPG elements through the town you can upgrade. Presents as though it were a Game Boy Color game in HD. Likely not the sort of game you'll marathon, it definitely won't be that way for me, but enjoyable to dip in for a level here and there.

Saly
Saly

I was really in doubt if I should recommend this game or not, but thanks to some design flaws, I just can't.

This is a quest of a mage without mana, where the most fun thing to do is cast spells.

The game has this great mechanic of playing aa Breakout-like and twisting the rules by casting awesome spells, but the mana is EXTREMILY limited, and that is just a shame. I got myself thinking all the time how I could do all sorts of cool things if I could cast, how I could break that one last brick with a well aimed fireball, or make an amazing combo with Wind, but it would just not happen.

Seriously, if you design an awesome mechanic, let your players use it, and make your level design around that feature!

Puppy Czar
Puppy Czar

It's not a bad game in itself, it's just.. a really slow arkanoid game. The game is hard, levels feels grindy, and the RPG mechanics are bareboned, making little to no difference in the game.

There's better Arkanoid-clone out here.

Yodzilla
Yodzilla

Wizorb is a great example of a genre mashup that works (breakout + RPG). The art is charming and the gameplay is really tight. My only real knocks against it are that it can be weirdly frustrating at times and it's not super long but what's there is good.

Giga
Giga

Very grindy, no check pointing so losing one ball is level killing, and there's no real way to get magic back so some levels become unbeatable if you don't do everything exactly right.

Would be fine if you somehow got magic back, or if it wasn't 'required' for given levels. As it stands, you need to play perfectly from level 1 onwards or you can't get mandatory upgrades just to progress.

pokusan
pokusan

Fun, little Arkanoid type game with some up to date mechanics with all the old school graphics. Would recommend.

ZZackXLR
ZZackXLR

Wizorb was a nice idea, but badly executed. The spell system sounds good, until you realise that you'll get way too much mana at the beginning of a level, when you don't need it, and way too little at the end, when it would be nice to have it to destroy that last eluding block. Every upgrade you can manage to get your hands on will be lost whenever you lose a life, making them pretty useless, and erasing any kind of "level up" in a split second. The secret amulet, while a nice feature, can only be found way too late in the game, making it pretty useless. The soundtrack is boring and extremely repetitive.
Overall, the game doesn't know if it wants to be an arcade or a rpg, being neither in the process, making it pretty bland and, well, just not fun. If you really, really like arkanoid games, thought, wizorb is pretty cheap, and I don't think you can find anything better for that price.

Kinoghoul
Kinoghoul

I really like this game. Simple breakout action with some light RPG style to it. Also runs I have had no issues running it on linux.

Darkslayer84
Darkslayer84

Breakout Meets Zelda! Challenging and fun, with retro flair. Great music! Try Easy level (I did!) to unlock more secrets. This game would've ruined my grades back in the day ;D PLEASE MAKE WIZORB 2

UncleIroh
UncleIroh

Game itself is pretty good. its got a nice arcade feel to it, and when not frustrating the hell out of me its a lot of fun! So im recommending it. HOWEVER, half the time the game is fuckin infuriating to play. With the keyboard(especially if you dont have paddle speed turned up) you cant keep up with the ball literally forcing you to die. Using the mouse is much better though thankfully, althought there are moments of bullshit that happen every once in a while, although i feel that is probably more my skill than anything. Most of the bosses aren't too hard, except the netherworld boss. That one is just complete bullshit. Overall, the game is 3 bucks. Easily worth playing at that price.

Timothy Lightbourne
Timothy Lightbourne

There's been a zillion incarnations of this game before, from the obvious Breakout or Arkanoid, but for me it first reminds me of a budget C64 game called Batty. I hated that game back then and I hate this game now. The retro graphics look lovely and the game might have been a fun classic had it been released on the Mega Drive back in 1993, but it's just too damn hard to the point where it becomes tedious and joyless. There are 20 achievements included with this game (and trading cards) but the requirements needed to win them would involve many, many hours of gameplay and Wizorb simply is not worth all that. I can barely suffer this game for two levels at a time.

It tries to incorporate RPG elements, which would have been more fun if you were rewarded with a LOT more money during gameplay. But you're not, so the effort is wasted and confusing.

Way too hard and no fun at all. Don't bother with this one, it will just drag down your averages.

Politishin
Politishin

Breakable pots and their accompanying sound effects can be found in many games. If you are looking for the absolute BEST sound effect for breaking a pot, this is the game for you. As a breakout-style game, it ticks most boxes; accurate ball trajectory, fun (if a bit limited) power-ups and varied brick layouts. Add to that the lite town building and RPG mechanics, and you have a definite buy.

PR0XIDIAN (PoP_OS!)
PR0XIDIAN (PoP_OS!)

Wizorb is a fun little game that reminds me of all of the hours I sunk into "blasterball wild by wild tangent games" on my dad's windows XP computer as a kid! Haha. Brick breaker games are always a ton of fun, but this one takes it a step further with a neat little story, great music, fun pixel art, and extra gameplay mechanics I haven't seen elsewhere. In this game you are a wizard and all of the powerups are based around magic spells. Plus, this game runs natively on linux which I super appreciate! ~PR0XIDIAN

nopienso.
nopienso.

Great retro block braker. The physics are spot on and the magic mechanic is tricky to master but gives the game a fresh enough twist so that you do not feel like you are just playing any old block braker.

The game is a bit on the short side. Depending on how skilled you are it could take you anywhere from 2 to 6 hours. But It is totally justifiable for the price.

The story is simple but serviceable. I mean it is a block braker with a story that is an achievement in itself.

Some of the none block braking elements are quite underdeveloped, but again, if you know what you are getting into it shouldn't really be a problem.

Probably my favorite block braker since Arkanoid Do It Again.

Vantier
Vantier

Great arkanoid clone. Bad overall game.

IMO arkanoid is, and always has been, a very annoying genre of game. It's fun to some extent, until you reach the final few blocks and you quickly realize you don't actually have as much control over the ball as you would like to think lol. The magic abilities help a little bit, but this major game design flaw still exists and gets boring fast. You just hit the ball and pray it goes where you want.

This style of game is just fundamentally flawed and not good IMO. It's not challenging, it's just time consuming and frustrating.

Parlan Spinner
Parlan Spinner

It's basically Arkanoid or Breakout, but with a story element, and a Mrs. Dash of wizardry. The level settings, enemies, and maps give it enough variety to keep it from being boring. The controller support was highly appreciated, as I tend to get arthritis using a keyboard/mouse. If you're looking for a classic arcade game, with a spin on it, then I would recommend this title.

constantcompile
constantcompile

Not fun enough for how punishing it is

Credit where it's due: The premise and presentation of this game are certainly charming. The magic powers you get are useful without being broken, and the levels are varied in themes and mechanics.

The problem is that the systems of reward and punishment just don't feel good.

Losing a life is absolutely miserable. Not because lives are scarce - if anything they're over-abundant - but because it takes so much time to get your upgrades back. Quitting a world mid-run forfeits any gold you've earned retroactively. You want to help the village folk? Go ahead, but know that it will take you that much longer to 100% the grindy late-game achievements. You grinded out 50,000 gold? Congratulations! Go ahead and buy the most expensive item - all it will do is unlock a bad ending.

I am absolutely positive this game would be better reviewed if the progression was reworked as follows:

    • All money is cumulative, and never lost (with the exception of gold earned in a single run being lost with a game over). Buildings are fixed (unlocked) in a linear order at logical increments, the final building being fixed at 30,000 gold or so.

    • Instead of being re-purchased after each death, charms unlock when particular buildings are fixed, are not lost, and can be toggled from the pause menu. Stronger charms like magnet and multi-ball are unlocked when the last couple buildings are fixed.

Boom - with properly tuned number values, you've removed all need to grind from this game, made later levels feel less BS (because you're no longer doing them charmless post-death), and made the overall gameplay less punishing. It's too easy now, you say? Make charms enact negative multipliers to the gold earned, and make lives no longer retained across worlds. Now you've got the risk/reward back; you start each world with 5 lives and fewer charms give you more rewards, but a greater chance of game over, and losing everything you earned that run.

Instead, shops are largely irrelevant if you already have the charms, which usually makes them feel like a waste of time and a well-positioned orb. You're incentivized to not fix anything until you have the "Filthy Rich" achievement, and - again - losing a life just feels like you're being massively inconvenienced.

Real talk - if this were sitting at "mixed," I'd probably go ahead and give it a thumbs-up anyway. But at 77% positive, the lack of a horizontal-thumb rating means I'm gonna go ahead and say,

Not recommended.

Tanoomba
Tanoomba

A pretty decent Arkanoid clone with great presentation. The pixel art is great and well animated. The powerups are fun and it's nice to be able to buy them with money you've collected. There are a few annoying elements, though, most of which are standard for the genre. You'll often find breakable blocks put in hard-to-reach places, such as behind invulnerable blocks. Sometimes an enemy will knock your ball at an unexpected angle, causing an instant death. While it's great to be able to purchase and stack powerups, greatly increasing your offense and survivability, if you happen to die you lose them all and are left at a huge disadvantage. The magic abilities are a great addition, but it would have been nice if your magic meter increased slowly over time instead of depending on discovering refills.

It can get really frustrating at times, especially near the end, but overall Wizorb was a fun little romp through familiar territory with great presentation.

Gerelos
Gerelos

Beautiful pixel-art style graphics, some light RPG elements, and a soundtrack that elicits real feelings of nostalgia as if they were already classics. It feels like it could have been a real SNES or Gameboy Color game, just shrunk down a bit. The block breaking gameplay was fun and challenging thanks to the difficulty settings, and the spells to control the ball or shoot fireballs were nice for fishing out those last hard to reach blocks in later levels. I beat the game in a little over 6 1/2 hours of playtime, without yet going back to collect missed achievements. For $2.99 (I got mine on sale for a little less), I'd definitely recommend giving this game a try!

Kuuki Yomi
Kuuki Yomi

The game was pretty frustrating for me on Normal, but maybe because I played it with a controller. I probably would have enjoyed it more on Easy.

Demon Barber
Demon Barber

If you like Breakout, you'll enjoy this game. If you hate it, this game probably won't change your mind. It adds some variety with spells, which can also act as a sort of quality of life by helping you hit that last block. There's also a town rebuilding mechanic which is a nice touch. The pixel art is also well done.

FernLwo
FernLwo

The "fun moments" outweigh the "dull moments", and if you're a fan of brick breakers, I'd recommend giving it a go.

Presentation and music, are done real neatly. Makes you feel like you're playing a Snes title.

Ya do tend to get stuck, going after the last brick or two in some levels, but...it's a brick breaker. Duh.

lostleader
lostleader

For what basically amounts to a Breakout Clone, Wizorb is kinda one of the prettiest psuedo NES games out there. From it's captivating soundtrack to it's charming pixel graphics. Wizorb is certainly dressing to impress.

Unlike most breakout clone games, Wizorb has some nice RPG elements to it; akin to a magic system and power up item shop. While you largely only get money and magic potions throughout the game, you can use various magic spells and power up abilities to either help you control the ball better or help it break more blocks as you launch it. The main problem being how difficult it is to control the ball where you want it to go. And while the appeal of Breakout Clones is slowly chipping away blocks upon blocks of points, it can be a bit mind numbing when you can't really exit out of any given level. While Wizorb let's you at least save and quit out of games, if you ever wanted to leave and stock up on items is a different story.

I think that Wizorb would have been a better game in my mind if I didn't have to do the whole world in one go, but it at least gives you a bunch of continues and the ability to get lives rather easily. I understand that it was a way to score people while playing the game, but honestly a separate score attack and story mode would have been better. Not that I had a lot of difficulties with the game though, but I can see people of lesser patience or abilities being fed up with it.

Wizorb is honestly kinda a neat and inventive game for the type that it is though, and a lot of that can be attested to it's boss battles and magic system. I feel if we had a lot more of it and less about score attacking then the game wouldn't feel so daunting of a task, but for what we did get isn't bad either. While Wizorb can get boring at times, it by far has more good going for it than bad.

Poleena
Poleena

An Arkanoid style game, with town building which I always enjoy. Solid graphics, controls, and the vibrant colors help to bring the game to life. I also like how I am an old wizard not just some cute girl or guy character.
I am not very good at these, but I still reinstall it every once and awhile and give it a go. I think that says something for the game, that I can not be very good at it and yet still enjoy it and appreciate it for what it is. Above my skill level to get all the achievements but still a solid Thumbs up!

Seppo
Seppo

It was really hard to decide between recommending or not, the game really is a mixed bag. The basic gameplay is fine, the game is rather short you can beat it in 3-5 hours. However i orginally played it in hard mode in 2012 and lost on world 5 which meant i had to replay the entire world 5 which takes about an hour and decided to stop playing instead. I recently revisited the game and mostly had a good time but there are still a lot of design decision that i find very odd.

Powerups are persistent until you lose a life, that means that if you play really carefully you can have all powerups for most of the game making the experience rather easy. However once you even make a single mistake and lose a life you get punished very harshly for it.

Shops and Bonus areas are interrupting the gameflow. Imagine you just wedged your ball behind the board ready to break up most of the bricks easily except there is a shop you can't avoid and now the ball starts back on the paddle again - bummer.

The game isn't optimized for mouse controls, buying in shops is annoying also the way to use the amulet is just weird.

You have little control/precision with your paddle, i think that this might be intentional to force the use of magic more but i kinda dislike it.

Conclusion: Pick it up on a sale and play it on easy to have a good time, otherwise avoid.

hatsune mike
hatsune mike

This is a great little game for fans of Breakout and Arkanoid. The graphics and sound design are excellent, the magic mechanics are fun, and the gameplay is classic. The game took me about 4-5 hours to beat on normal difficulty. What else could you want for $3?

The only real downsides are the lack of depth within the town and the occasional monotony of trying to get that one last block hidden behind an unbreakable one, but magic usually helps with this. Additionally, the game gives you more MP if you don't hit anything within 10 shots, which makes sure you always have a chance.

This is a short, cheap, fun, and charming indie game. Highly recommend it for the price, especially if you can get it on sale.

griffy
griffy

brick breaker with some light rpg elements and fun mechanics to keep it fresh.
a charming graphical style and music make it well worth the buy

micmotorheadst
micmotorheadst

It's not quite your standard ball & paddle game. Think DX-Ball, but structured sort of like a "story" campaign (not much actual story though) with extra lives, a Super Mario style stage map and continues.
Unfortunately, a thing this games removes from the traditional ball & paddle format is the random power ups. There are in fact zero power ups to collect in crates. You can buy one on a rare occasion, but extra lives will always be cheap and often a better use of your money than a power up that only lasts for the current ball.

You can also cast two spells, provided you have mana (money and mana is mostly what you collect while you break blocks). One spell is a wind spell that alters the trajectory of the ball. The other is a fireball.

This fireball is super convenient, right? Well, it indirectly becomes this game's undoing.

Since you have access to such an easy way of breaking bricks, the level designer can't really make too many of the blocks breakable from the downwards direction - that would make the game too easy when you can just shoot them. So almost all of the damn bricks are unbreakable from below, which - coupled with the lack of random power ups in the stages - makes for some pretty slow, conservative and predictable gameplay. You'll spend way too much time hitting nothing, just trying to get the ball into that one opening where it can actually hit anything breakable. After a few chapters I found it unbearably tedious.

If you didn't have access to a fireball almost constantly, the levels wouldn't have to be so obnoxiously designed. And if you found power ups instead of always having two permanent powers that never change, the game would be far less repetitive and dull.

The game also has enemies, but they all behave nearly the same and add nothing to the game. And then there's the occasional boss fight that also fails to do anything actually interesting.
Strikey Sisters is a game that does the whole 16-bit style ball-and-paddle game with a story thing waaaaay better. It's even got enemies and bosses - except they are creative and actually add to the game!. For what it's worth, I recommend that game very strongly.

SleepyScarecrow
SleepyScarecrow

The other top reviewers are absolutely correct. It's a cute idea, beautifully presented, but very quickly becomes boring and frustrating. The two biggest issues are that this is a breakout style game that 1. Doesn't have random power ups, so you are largely doing the same thing over and over again with no variation, and 2. Many blocks are hidden behind unbreakable objects which makes hitting them a seriously annoying ordeal. These two facts add up to a game that is both obnoxious and boring at the same time, as you'll be bouncing the ball back and forth for what seems like tens of minutes, trying to hit the last brick tucked away behind a barrier.

A pretty as the game is, the gameplay is just not enjoyable. Go get Peggle Nights instead if you're looking for an arcade experience that's actually fun.

Doomykins
Doomykins

I wanted to recommend Wizorb, a flawed gem with an innovative take on a classic. Then I broke my cycle of reinstalling Wizorb, playing until bored and uninstalling. I hunkered down and finally gave Wizorb the attention it deserved, playing through to the end.

And boy did I regret that.

Wizorb is a take on Breakout where you bounce a ball off a paddle and guide it towards destroying every block on the stage. Wizorb probably got a lot of its sales from the very good pixel art, the charm oozing off the sprites, and the nostalgic idea of "Breakout but Better." Spells that let you apply a human touch to counter that irritating nearly-RNG element of batting the ball? Enemies that make it a little action packed game instead of a reflex/timing puzzle? RPG elements and a story mode where you build up a town?

Wizorb puts on a really good face, red nose and all. Monsters are running wild in the kingdom, only Cyrus and his extremely specific school of magic can help. Transform into a paddle and bounce your orb of pondering against monsters and blocks, noble magician. There's not much past this, you can pay money(points scored) to rebuild the town and get bits of dialogue and even a side quest but "defeat the bad guys" is the thrust of things. A shame the artist couldn't channel his talent into doing all the programming and design himself. And the music, it's decent but grows old fast.

Wizorb falls apart due to several factors. Before I get into them I will say that it's a nice recreation of Breakout to a point. The paddle is responsive, you can almost reliably set up the ball to go where you'd want as you get better at knowing which part of the paddle yields which angle vs how the ball impacts it, there's good feedback to most things and everything is crystal clear in clarity, I like how the ball is always blue vs all power-ups/curses being red, yellow or purple so you can keep track of things. There's definitely a good deal of room for pushing the skill ceiling of Wizorb. The idea of spells is fantastic, that you can take care of "that one last block" by throwing a fireball at it. You can also set up a full line clear by turning the ball into a meteor, get an impossible trick shot by "teleporting"(directly controlling briefly) where the ball is and use wind to keep up the Breakout ideal, bouncing the ball off the walls and blocks at the top of the screen without it coming back to the bottom. Wizorb isn't all bad and at some point there was a good focus on improving the classic formula.

What turns me against Wizorb is the level design. Wizorb does many things that undermine itself and eventually makes the game much worse. The overuse of indestructible tiles is downright criminal and the most common use of them is to place them as the lowest tile, forcing you to bounce around them and come down to hit the blocks behind them. An insane shooting-yourself-in-the-foot to design spells that let you get past "one last block" and then make so many maps where the option isn't available. Were there concerns that good players were clearing maps too fast? Magic isn't readily available. Using it too often even with the cheap spells drains the bar fast and it doesn't recharge between levels, only from drops or from the obscure charity refill that you get if you bounce the ball fruitlessly far too many times. There isn't an issue here that players will speedrun poor Wizorb too brutally if they can fireball every tile: that isn't possible in the first place. The overuse of indestructible tiles is a real death knell by worlds 4 and 5 where it's a majority of map design on several levels. What should be used sparingly to guide players to bouncing the ball down interesting parts of the map becomes an absolute barrier to player enjoyment. The worst part is your ball speeds up and stages get harder the longer the ball is active so due to the map design you'll almost inevitable start taking losses: you need those last few blocks, you CANNOT spell them because of mana drain/bad tiles, you need to pull a win before the ball slips by.

Speaking of, magic is far too restrictive. As I said your mana isn't all that free to begin with and you'll quickly learn that magic is a sometimes food. Overuse of magic is punished by going through several stages without it and a between stages/on death refill(even just half the bar) would've gone a long way. Removing your natural drive to experiment freely with magic and being so heavily punished by mistakes turns the core innovation of Wizorb into another penalty. Magic ends up being a feature you ignore until you see a very key opportunity with wind or you need fireballs/teleports to get the last tile. The Meteor is good but far too costly and expires far too quickly for anything but the most obvious(and unnecessary) shots at the start of a map, which of course is when you can't use one launching from your paddle. Magic is a system that teaches you not to rely on it(good) to the point of not using it(bad) and you can't depend on it because of map design later(terrible.) There should be incentive to use magic constantly to maintain a more engaging pace of map clearing but ultimately I ended up thinking of magic as "can I end this terrible level a bit faster?" and doing 90% of levels vanilla. Power-ups never drop on the map itself but instead you get random curses which you can't anticipate ahead of time without playing and memorizing the map. How about some tile cues? Gilded for gold, runes for mana potions, seething with purple for curses.

Enemies are a cute idea but poorly implemented. For the first three worlds they do nothing, they're blocks that wander randomly. They're slightly interesting in four(teleport periodically or when hit) and in world five the monkeys paw curls and you get indestructible enemies unless hit very specifically and blahblahblah. I think you get the idea, Wizorb bad when tedious. The crux of a Breakout clone is understanding what makes it frustrating for players and smoothing that over with fun gameplay. Sitting around and bouncing the ball 20+ times to get the last block is dull. Extreme precision in a game where you rarely have great control of the outcome is terrible and world 5 introduces precision gem blocks that must be hit only so many times to make them match. If they're not in fireball set-up then you can imagine the potential for fun here. Wizorb had the right idea but abandons it halfway through. The price tag suggests this wasn't a game meant for a lot of dev time but you could easily improve most of the game by replacing the indestructible tiles with 2 hit stone tiles.

Wizorb is smart enough to price itself according to its rough quality. $3 isn't a bad deal to try it out. You may be amused briefly and then forget about it, the best outcome. Going for the full experience will leave most badly soured, myself completing the game purely out of spite after world 4. This is a game with niche appeal, it doesn't innovate enough past Breakout to be much fun to people who aren't actively seeking it and the awful map design of the second half and the baffling design choices that work against Wizorb make it worse than your average Breakout clone. The final thumb in your eye is the last boss encompassing all the worst tedium of limited spells and indestructible tiles.

Three dollars or less is cheap but time has value and as I sit here watching my ball do the last tile shuffle again and I can't fireball past the indestructible tile I realize I've gotten a paddlin'. So much of Wizorb is dull tedium. Want a good Breakout? Grab Arkanoid roms. Try Strikey Sisters. Buy an original Atari. Whatever you do don't look to Wizorb.

CamPU
CamPU

While Wizorb has good ideas it's really held back by being in the breakout genre. I never felt in control of what was happening and waiting for the ball to hit the last bricks was awful. The magic would be fun but it was extremely limited leading me to save it for the last bricks.

crank machine
crank machine

its a good game and very cheap but i hate hard mode so much it is so bad and never play hard mode unless you want to get all the achievements there is literally 0 reason for you to put yourself through that torture unless you are mentally insane enough to go for all the achievements in this game like me

Valdrea
Valdrea

Out the gate its too hard. The 1st few arenas should ease you into it and if this is easy then I dont want to see the later levels Your paddle moves slower than the puck so you cant keep up with it ..you have to be well on your way to the bounce location before the puck. Breakout and Arkanoid is much more fun. I can only recommend on deep sale less $2.

Dammit_Ivaldi
Dammit_Ivaldi

No functional windowed mode, can't adjust game settings after starting it, there's no save points mid-world so if you go back to town thinking you'll save the gold you earned, you end up losing all of your progress. Wouldn't be worth playing even if this game was free.

Grit4ever
Grit4ever

This game just reminds you that playing with someone elses balls is never fun. boring music, no real wow factor. most levels end with you begging the ball will hit the tiny block in the corner.

Phyllobates
Phyllobates

bizzare sprite seam issues in the overworld on my machine, uninteresting setting (maybe on purpose), and gameplay that's too random to be enjoyable. your magic bar and the spells that rely on it only distract from what's most important in breakout: watching the ball and moving accordingly.

Firefinch
Firefinch

It is a fairly simple game but a lot of fun. Back to the good old days of taking a ball and bouncing it off a paddle, except it's also kind of an RPG.

Joules
Joules

Nice little game if you like this type of games. Can get a little bit tedious at times but overall is a good experience if it is played in small chunks.

sailorbear510
sailorbear510

At first , my mind thought this was a cross between Zelda and Arkanoid then again I have all these thoughts of classic games floating around in my mind. This game is well worth your time buying and playing and you will get lots of fun out of it. They also natively support the XBOX controller in game to play.

ThereforeDragons
ThereforeDragons

Great game if you enjoy Breakout. The art is lovely, and you break blocks.

GuardCancel
GuardCancel

I love this game! I first played this when I had an Xbox 360 (back when they had an indie section) and fell in love with it ever since. Glad I grabbed a copy of it on steam as it plays better with mouse controls. If you're a fan of "breaking some bricks" then give this game a chance. =) It's fun even without the magic. XD

darius404
darius404

I left a bad review before cuz I'm stupid and forgot I was playing on hard. Decent game, but avoid hard unless you REALLY want your Breakout to be punishing.

Osmosis Jones
Osmosis Jones

cool game
just bounce the ball and shut up dude

Lordimbroke
Lordimbroke

Design wise this is awful. Blue ball on a blue background.

Style was beautiful. Not a game made to be fun, more of a challenge but that also comes with the side of the bad design included free of charge.

jlavin17
jlavin17

It's a fun breakout clone with some good sprite work and endearing animations! I like the way the environments feel like real spaces. That said, this game did regularly crash on me. I still had fun, but that did try my patience. :(