Wizard

About

Wizard is a forgotten Atari 2600 title where you play a glowing wizard battling a star-shaped monster through a maze. Movement and combat are tight for the hardware: you dodge through corridors while automatically firing at the enemy, which can phase through walls but not shoot through them. Each shot dims your character briefly as they recharge, adding tension to every trigger pull. The design feels like a spiritual cousin to other 70s-80s arcade conversions, with simple but clever mechanics balancing evasion and attack. This one never made it to shelves. Marketing shifts at Atari killed the project just as it wrapped development, leaving it without catalogs, ads, or a release date. Crawford’s quote about 2K vs 4K cartridge sizes explains why it faded into obscurity. What’s here is a neat example of early 8-bit design constraints turned into gameplay, maze navigation, limited firepower, and a monster that stalks but doesn’t track you. Retro collectors might recognize echoes of Berzerk’s chase logic or Wor’s magical aesthetic, but Wizard stands as a rare, unfinished chapter in Atari’s history.

Storyline

You control a wizard (at least I think he's a wizard), who must attempt to destroy the swirling star shaped creature. The board layout is a giant maze, which makes it hard to run from the creature and to get a clean shot off. Unfortunately the creature can move through the maze walls, but thankfully it can't shoot through them. Once you take a shot you'll notice that your wizard dims a bit, this means you are recharging, and cannot shoot. Once your wizard is done recharging he will light back up again, and you can take another shot. You don't have to worry about aiming you shots, as you will automatically shoot in the direction of the creature. This makes it easy to run away but still take shots at the creature.