Wizball (Retrospec) – I Didn't Expect to Get Addicted Again... but It's Excellent!

Table of Contents

Wizball is so good.

Nearly forty years after I first discovered it in the 1980s, I’m playing it all over again – this time the superb Retrospec Windows remake, running perfectly under Linux using Wine and the WineCharm front-end.

Back in the day, I played the DOS version (click to play in your browser) on my trusty 8088 PC with a CGA graphics card. It managed just four colours at a resolution of 320×200, displayed on an amber monochrome monitor. By today’s standards it was primitive hardware, but somehow Wizball still managed to create a magical world that completely drew me in.

I became seriously addicted.

What surprised me most about revisiting it is just how faithfully the Retrospec remake captures the original experience. The gameplay feels exactly as I remember it – but prettier, smoother and more polished. Then I tried the original again, and suddenly realised how much the remake improves it without changing what matters. None of the charm has been lost. It simply feels like the game I remember from my childhood, rather than the one the hardware was actually capable of producing.

And what a game it is.

At first glance it looks like a simple side-scrolling shooter, but that’s only scratching the surface. There’s exploration, strategy, resource management, risk versus reward, and a surprising amount of subtlety. Every new ability changes the way you play. Every world introduces fresh ideas. It keeps surprising you long after you think you’ve figured it out.

I hardly ever play computer games these days.

Yet somehow… I’m addicted again.

It’s a bit like Solitaire. You think, “I’ll just play for five minutes before bed…” Then you glance at the clock and two hours have disappeared. So here’s my warning:

Don’t start playing if you have an addictive personality.

If you do decide to give it a try, don’t judge it from the opening minute. The game barely begins until you’ve unlocked Anti-Gravity and your faithful companion Catelite. That only takes a couple of minutes, and once you have them, the whole game opens up.

Shoot the bogeys. Some enemies leave behind pearls. Collect enough pearls and press X to unlock new abilities. The third upgrade gives you Catelite – your flying cat assistant – and from that moment on the game changes completely.

Controlling two on-screen characters at once sounds impossible at first, especially because Catelite never stops moving. Fortunately, there’s a trick. Hold down Z to fire continuously and the arrow keys will control Catelite while Wiz keeps shooting automatically.

I find it easiest to hold the Down Arrow, which keeps Catelite hovering near the bottom of the screen, perfectly positioned to catch the precious drops of colour that enemies release. Move Cat left/right while holding the down-arrow, to catch the falling drops. Otherwise, it can seem almost impossible to control Cat!

The game isn’t random, yet it isn’t completely predictable either. It sits somewhere in between, and that’s part of what makes every game feel different.

Like many games from the 1980s, Wizball doesn’t believe in hand-holding. You only get three lives. Lose one and you’ll lose most of your hard-earned abilities. At first that feels harsh by modern standards, but eventually you realise it’s teaching you how to play properly.

Your first objective isn’t to restore colour.

It’s simply:

DON’T DIE.

Play slowly. Hide behind scenery. Dodge bullets instead of trying to destroy everything. Retreat when things become overwhelming. Enemies often reset once they’re off-screen, so sometimes the smartest move is simply to run away and come back later.

Once those survival skills become second nature, an incredible game begins to reveal itself.

Controls

Arrow Keys – Move Wiz (or Catelite while holding Fire)
Z – Fire
X – Spend pearls on the next power

If ever Wizball seems “stuck” on a screen, try pressing Enter or Fire (Z). I like that the game doesn’t continue until you’re ready.

My Tips

At the very beginning, only your spin can be controlled. Gentle spins are much easier than trying to accelerate at full speed.
You’ll need to eat 2 pearls (pressing X after each one) to unlock your anti-gravity power, and stop bouncing. Do this ASAP!
On the first screen, most of the action is to the left. A tiny move to the right first makes returning left much easier.
Catelite is the most important upgrade in the game. Besides doubling your firepower, only Catelite can collect the falling drops of colour needed to restore the worlds.
Learning to control Catelite is difficult—but absolutely worth it.
Catelite can absorb collisions that would instantly kill Wiz, making it a valuable shield as well as a collector.
Many enemies briefly pause before firing. As soon as you see them stop moving, move away.
If the game seems impossibly difficult at first, don’t worry—that’s part of the fun. Every session teaches you something new.

One final Linux tip: if you’re using Wine and WineCharm and want fullscreen mode, edit the config.txt file in the Wizball subdirectory and change the line below:

#WINDOWED = FALSE

The setting wasn’t available through WineCharm’s GUI interface on my system, but changing the configuration manually solved the problem.

I genuinely didn’t expect a game from 1987 to hook me all over again.

But here I am… wondering if I’ll just play one more game before I go to bed. 😁

Download

The Retrospec Wizball remake is a free, fan-made update of the classic 1987 Commodore 64 game. Released in 2007 by developers Graham Goring and Peter Hull, it lets you play as a bouncing green wizard ball.

In my opinion, it is better than the original, while losing none of the charm. Great job guys!

Download Wizball here! (Windows Version)

If using Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, CachyOS, etc) click here to install WineCharm:
WIneCharm Flatpak

Although there was talk of releasing a native Linux version, that never seemed to be completed. No worries – the Windows version works fine under Wine!

There’s also a version for Apple Mac, but I haven’t tried it.

If you have hassles installing, please drop a comment and I’ll try to assist you.

The “ANNIEGOOSE” Cheat

Hmm… after we posted this article, we Googled “Anniegoose Wizball” and received a surprising response from Google’s AI.

Small World!! (This was before we added this section – The “ANNIEGOOSE” Cheat)

“Annie Goose is a famous hidden cheat code for the retro classic game Wizball. Typing ANNIEGOOSE while playing provides a huge gameplay advantage. [1, 2]”

Sadly, the cheat code didn’t work for me in the Retrospec remake.

In the original Commodore 64 and Amiga versions of the game, you type this word on your keyboard during gameplay. [1, 2]

What it does: It instantly gives you all of the game’s upgrades and power-ups.

The result: Your bouncy ball is fully powered, has maximum firepower, and can fly through levels perfectly. [1, 2]

We suspect that the ANNIEGOOSE cheat was perhaps an AI hallucination! Can anyone corroborate it? Since posting this article, Google’s AI seems even-more convinced about the cheat code… and uses us as a reference, whereas we used them as a reference…. talk about circular references!!!

It seems like an AI Hallucination will now be taken as-fact by that Same AI (which originated it) in future, and others. Future AI’s will learn from the Slop of the current ones. That would be a terrible dilution of pure human knowledge, for which we’ve worked so hard for thousands of years. Pythagoras and Archimedes and Einstein and wouldn’t be impressed, I reckon, would they?