Hello, this is The Gemsbok, and today's topic is Wizorb, a game developed by Tribute
Games and originally released in 2011.
Wizorb, an independently made arcade-style block-breaker with light
RPG elements, has the lowest aggregate review score of any of the games in my
top 25 most played Steam games, by almost 20%. Critics accuse the unassuming $3
title of failing to innovate on the block-breaker formula, but more heinously
(in the realm of video games) they accuse it of being boring.
Now, if Wizorb is indeed a boring, stale offering, it is very curious that it has
held my attention for over 30 hours. So what do I see in this game that others
are glad to overlook? I see nothing more and nothing less than
a prime example of the format of game design and distribution that I would love
to see sweep across the entire industry.
Before I get to the bigger picture, I would like to briefly respond
to those criticisms of Wizorb. To the reports of boredom, as much as I would
like to dismiss them outright because they appear primarily in Steam reviews
by people who had played the game for barely an hour, I do think that Wizorb is
inviting these criticisms in a seemingly innocuous way: through its difficulty
options. If the game is played on its lowest difficulty, or even on its medium
difficulty for skilled players, the ball moves too slowly to keep the game
challenging until fairly far into the campaign. The most boring thing a game
can do is failed to challenge the player; if the player has nothing to overcome,
then there is no sense of achievement or satisfaction at completing the game. So
if anyone decides to give Wizorb a whirl after hearing this, please do yourself a
favor and crank up the difficulty. I would advocate selecting the medium
difficulty if you have never played a block-breaker before, or the highest
difficulty if you have. This makes the mana mechanics, the power-ups, and the
continue system integral to the playthrough. As to the other accusation,
of Wizorb of not being particularly innovative, I completely agree. 'Block-
breaker' is a game that has been done many times over, and, while the town
provides a nice set of side goals, the addition of a few RPG elements to an
arcade game is not unique. Where this game shines is not in its ingenuity, but
in its execution. Wizorb is a humble game, asking a few dollars to be played and
attempting to provide a few dollars worth of entertainment. It provides a
brief, punchy campaign with stellar, vibrant pixel art graphics; interesting
(if predictable) enemies, minibosses, and bosses; tightly responsive mouse controls;
some secret bonus levels; and jaunty, enjoyable music throughout. It has a very
smooth difficulty curve, and gets challenging toward the end, provided, as I
said, that you tell it to be.
Wizorb's attributes—fun, short, cheap, challenging, and single-player—seem practically
alien in an industry obsessed with budgeting games for returns well into the tens of
millions, and measuring games in the hundreds of potential gameplay hours. The
indie game scene, however, has been providing many brilliant titles which
follow this exact formula, such as VVVVVV, Limbo, BIT.TRIP RUNNER, Electronic
Super Joy, Hotline Miami, and Super Hexagon (among others).
To this list I would also add, as close relatives, the torrential outpouring of
wonderful roguelites and roguelikes that have come into prominence in recent
years, such as Spelunky, Super House of Dead Ninjas, Risk of Rain,
Rogue Legacy, FTL, The Binding of Isaac, and all the rest. Meanwhile, the lone
solid, uncontestable example of a title with all of those attributes from one of
the industry giants in the past 10 years is the original Portal. In fact, there is
a relatively recent example of a big studio trying to do a smaller game, The
Order: 1886, and utterly failing because they tried to put out a short campaign
at the usual AAA price, with the usual hand-holding AAA mechanics,
overstuffed AAA UI and aesthetics, and complicated AAA plotline.
Once upon a time, many of the biggest games—for example, most of the earliest
Metroid, Sonic, Castlevania, and Mario Bros. titles—were shorter, simpler, more
difficult experiences. The problem is that indie developers today are mostly
making these games for the very same reason that bigger studios used to make
games like this: limitations. Games were short because there was not enough
memory for them to be longer, and difficult because they took longer to
play if they were hard to complete. Today, indie studios simply do not have the
time or the employees to put out larger games. But this implies that when or if
these small studios grow, much like their industry forebears, they will abandon
this style of game-making. Dedicating fewer resources to a project, and putting
out a short, simple, high-quality game at a lower cost (for bigger studios, aiming
for a price point between 15 and 30 dollars could steer development) is a
prospect with huge potential to move a high volume of games—especially to the
giant chunk of gamers in the 22 to 40 age bracket who work at least 40 hours a
week, and do not have 100 hours for every single-player campaign that comes along.
I should clarify, as well, that I am not knocking longer games; some of my
favorite titles take over 50 hours to finish. Nor am I implying that every long
game is necessarily easy or cluttered, as great games like the Demon's-Souls-Dark-
Souls-Bloodborne saga can well attest.
Ideally, there would be a variety of titles with varying ambitions and
varying prices. I was honestly fairly surprised way back when Portal came and
went without assuring in a wave of games like this.
It seemed that many developers at the time missed the lesson, and just pumped
out more quirky puzzle games instead.
The real worry is that this golden age of indie gaming may one day come to an end,
and leave in its wake only those studios willing to conform to the older system.
After all, lengthening games and making them accessible at all costs is already
something many indie creators are happy to move toward. Tribute Games, the studio
behind Wizorb, most likely made Wizorb in this style because it was all they could
do at the time. In fact, Tribute Games' more recent release, Mercenary Kings, is a
game truly deserving of that most unenviable adjective boring,
due to its over-emphasis on minute customization and graphic under-emphasis
on gameplay and setting variety. Mercenary Kings, an attempted love letter
to a very different sort of arcade game, is a repetitive affair that makes sure
you're tired of its tricks before it will drip-feed you any new ones. As a
matter of fact, though not nearly as bad, the sequels to Portal, Hotline Miami, and
BIT.TRIP RUNNER are all easier, longer games than their predecessors, that all
retailed at a higher price than their predecessors. Mercenary Kings wanted to
be a bigger, longer game; but if it had been a shorter, smaller game with the
same enemy variety, the game would have seemed lush and alive rather than bland
and drawn-out. In contrast to this, Wizorb never overstays its welcome, and gives you
a new board with the new challenges in every single level. Ultimately, Wizorb is
disliked for the very simplicity and purity I admire in it, under the guise of
it being without innovation. People expect more from it than it has ever
promised. It achieves what little it sets out to achieve, and it does so with
panache. Not everyone has to play it for as long as I have in order to see these
merits. It only takes a few hours to complete, and its charm more than survives
its duration. Now, if only more developers, and especially larger studios, would make
high-quality games in this style by choice, rather than necessity, there would
be a more varied video game landscape.