Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord — Mazed and Confused
Preview
There are not too many games older than me, but Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is one of them. It was released two years before I was born. I did have a bit of a CRPG fixation years ago, and I set it up in an emulator at one point with other classics (following in the footsteps of the venerable CRPG Addict). It was objectively harder to play through these games. And that’s why we need remakes.
Wizardry was the first game to adapt Dungeons & Dragons-like mechanics in colour graphics, and the first party-based CRPG. In the 80s and 90s, there were several franchises developing the party-based CRPG incrementally over sequels and expansions, such as Ultima and Baldur’s Gate. Like them, Wizardry also withered away in the tactical limbo of the 00s. Now it is back, over twenty years since the last sequel.
Quintessential Crawl
What did Wizardry do that was unique at the time? Adaptations of the early D&D system existed since 1975 (pedit5, dnd). Wizardry conceived the dungeon crawl not quite like a roguelike, but with a deadly compelling gameplay loop: you will lose your characters and items even if you’re careful. You will go back to the maze again and again, recovering their remains and possibly succumbing to the same fate.
To be fair, the next group you send down the abyss might not even make it as far as the first one did. As you go down levels, sometimes you die not from battles, but from falling into traps. The game ups the difficulty with new monsters and new challenges the deeper you go down the levels. And you might often die when you are trying to return to town. The remake includes a save-on-exit for emergencies, but otherwise you save by returning to town.
Nostalgia Factor
Nostalgia has to put in a lot of work to make the remake shine through. The underlying structure of Wizardry remains exactly the same on top of the graphical enhancements. The training grounds, tavern, and inn are all tied to a UI design that has not evolved at all since the early 80s. Keyboarding through the menus to create new party members and set them up in the best position can get kind of annoying.
As a product, the game also needs some optimization. It uses way too much GPU power for what it is doing with the graphics. My mid-range card was humming and thrumming while the game was running idle in the background sometimes. This is, after all, a game in Early Access with a lot of placeholder art and an incomplete look. Hopefully, the final release version will be fully optimized and more polished.
The developers have published an FAQ to address some issues, so if you plan to buy it, you should know in advance what Early Access entails and what their plans are. If you prefer something more contemporary, there are the Legend of Grimrock games as probably the most successful modern party-based dungeon crawler. But without Wizardry and Eye of the Beholder, there wouldn’t be Legend of Grimrock. Wizardry was the foundational dungeon crawler and an important title in RPG history.
Disclosure: Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord was previewed on PC with a Steam key provided by the developer. The game is available in Early Access on Steam and GOG. More information is available on the official website.