Wizball’s original Spectrum graphics artist has helped revisit the game nearly four decades after its release. Leigh “Gravious” Ashton has released Wizball: Enhanced Edition for the ZX Spectrum 128K, with feedback, bug reports and additional contributions from Mark R. Jones.
The unofficial fan modification revises collisions, controls and presentation while adding features from the Commodore 64 version. It is available now as a digital download, following Ocean Software’s original release in 1987.
Among the additions are colour-cycling enemy bullets, Purple Blazor power-up shots and a font from the C64 game. Two adapted instruction pages explain play, while hints rotate on the Get Ready screen.
Leigh’s changelog also describes a new double-buffered renderer designed to remove sprite flicker and tearing. A dual parallax starfield accompanies more colourful menus, with an attract sequence cycling through the title screen, credits and high scores.
Revised collisions and clearer information
The collision changes include circular detection for Wizball against enemies and their bullets, plus smaller enemy collision boxes. Leigh has also addressed enemies and upgrade pearls disappearing during busy scenes.
Controlling the cat receives attention, too. The update halves his automatic pull towards Wizball during player control. Activating power-ups through the left-right gesture has a more forgiving timing window, with either direction accepted as the starting movement.
The status display now identifies lives, zone and the number of enemies remaining in a wave. It also shows the cat’s remaining health while he is active. A new top-ten table retains high scores between games during the current session, and a separate music menu plays the game’s tracks.
Some differences from the C64 release remain. Leigh identifies the Cops and Bonus Level among the absent features, explaining how limited memory leaves their inclusion dependent on a larger reorganisation of the code and assets.
The download targets the 128K Spectrum. Leigh’s installation guidance lists emulators including Fuse and Spectaculator, alongside original hardware equipped with a DivMMC and Retro Games’ The Spectrum.
Download Wizball: Enhanced Edition from Gravious’s itch.io page, where the full changelog and installation instructions are available.
