Proving Grounds of The Mad Overlord

I recall two boys in a living room cheering and arguing over who delivered the killing blow to the dreaded wizard Werdna, since one boy played and the other’s character decapitated the villain. We would swap turns traversing the dank halls of the dungeon below Gilgamesh’s Tavern, fighting Frost Giants and dropping the Nuclear powered “Tiltowait” on Greater Demons.

Wizardry took table-top games like Dungeons and Dragons, kept the formula and made it instant fun for the 8bit NES. For boys like myself and best friend Troy who were avid RPG fans, it simply was the best game of it’s time. Being 90% text, it took an imagination and know-how to get to the levels we had attained in order to find the Wizard and slay him. I purchased graph paper to sketch out maps of the levels, we stood near the NES ready to quickly press reset if we teleported into rock and we grinded hours upon hours to get out characters ready for the ultimate fight.

The best part of Wizardry like most RPG games that followed, was the loot. There were so many exotic items that you never knew what to expect! The thief/ninja would diffuse the trap and loot the chest yielding items that either buffed (like a chestplace to turn a warrior into a Lord earning him the lovely “decapitate” skill), or to harm (like a cursed ring which can’t be removed without death). I must also mention the fact that you could only die once, resurrection was a roll of the die and if you made it back from the land of the dead your stats, hitpoints etc. took a shot for it. Die in the dungeon and it was game over, yes harsh, game over even after months of gameplay.

One day when walking through the University mall in Tampa Bay, a friend of mine who worked in the Electronics Boutique introduced me to a man named Andrew. He was alawyer to whom my friend was describing the depth of my love for that old game and the man seemed strangely honored. Turned out that Andrew was indeed Werdna spelled backwards and I had met the creator of my favorite game (yes I was in nerd heaven that day).

Wizardry was all that and spawned a ton of sequels each special in their own right but none as great as the original. To this day I can still hum the music and Troy argues with me over who slew Werdna first. Many people have forgotten this game but for us it was the greatest RPG of it’s time.