This is the title screen! As you can see, it has a title, and a menu, and some other things. You will also notice that the menu is flanked on the left by what appears to be a cross between a cabbage and a smiley on steroids, and on the right by a little green spaceship. That’s Wiz and his cat-whose-name-I-never-bothered-to-find-out. These are the main characters, and you control them both.

The story in Wizball is that Wiz’s galaxy or world or moon or whatever has somehow been drained of colour, and so Wiz sets out to restore it by turning into a cabbage and collecting paint. And that’s what you do: you fly around shooting aliens and, using your faithful cat as a bucket/attack-drone, collect paint to restore the backgrounds to their polychromatic selves. Lookit:

Here’s how a stage originally appears. I don’t know why Wiz has multiple replicas of Mt. Rushmore scattered around the place. I guess he’s just really patriotic. Anyway, here’s the same area after I’ve given it a lick of paint or three:

BLIMEY, IT’S ALL BLUE INNIT!

Now, if you’re wondering why I’ve suddenly turned Cockney, it’s because of this:

This is the screen you get whenever you finish painting an entire level. WOT A WIZACE! If you had a childhood anything at all like mine, you'll have just experienced a flood of memories related to British-made videogame mags, like Super Play and CVG. Oh man, CVG! Who else remembers Yob, the surly git they had answering mail? People would write to him and ask if you really could turn a Sonic cartridge into Mario by dropping it in the bath, and he’d be like, “Oi, sod off ya naff blighter!” Ahhh. Those were the days. I wish today’s videogame mags would insult their readers like that. You know, instead of just insulting their intelligence.

I’m trying really hard not to say ‘SNAP!’ right now. Time for another picture!

Here’s a picture of Wiz back at his house, pouring paint into a magic cauldron. Note how the greedy cat goes straight for the food bowl. Fucking greedy cat, eating all the damn cat food. Wiz should drop HIM into the cauldron. That’d fix him up right proper.

And here we have the bonus stage. It’s not a very exciting picture, but then, not much compares to WOT A WIZACE! God, that’s such a great line. I think that’s going to be my catch-phrase from now on. Whenever somebody does something good, I’ll say “WOT A WIZACE!” and then give them a big thumbs-up like in this picture of Zzap64! reviewer Julian Rignall. Then I’ll explain the reference, and clarify that – no, actually – I wasn’t being sarcastic. Then there’ll probably be a bit of an uncomfortable silence, after which I’ll make an awkward exit by faking a migraine.

Okay, so maybe I won’t use it that often after all. But I will use it in the final score. Which is coming up just abouuuut ... now.

FINAL SCORE: WOT A WIZACE!