Wizball

Now this was a weird game.  We played this A LOT, up at Mick's place at the end of the road, with me and my twin brother Evan.  We'd take turn being the player and the cat, with the third person watching and commentating along.


We never got bored of it.
It was such a challenging game.


Again, it took us a long time just to figure out how it worked.  WAGGLE THE JOYSTICK the activate the currently highlighted powerup?  OK...


There was a REAL sense of camaraderie in this game. 


The wizard character had to actually EARN the other player, by collecting 3 pickups (by killing a whole set of an enemy type for each pickup), and then choosing to waggle the joystick to "manifest" the cat.  Then the cat player would appear and be able to play until they die.  The cat is required to pick up the paint drops, which is the point of the game.


It's all very interesting and unique.  I can't really think of an equivalent type of game today!  Can anyone out there think of something like Wizball?


I can only imagine that this would have been a very iteratively made game.  I am guessing that Sensible Software started working on it from a basic concept, and then just "felt out" where it was going from there, adding powerups and features as they went.


I really don't see how you could go about designing this game from the ground up, entirely on paper.  No sirree!


A real gem.  And that guitar lick at the end?  GOOOLD.