Wizard101 Preview

A snippet of a conversation overheard at E3 in Los Angeles recently touted a new massively multiplayer online game currently in beta – Wizard101.

KingsIsle Entertainment is behind the title, which is a bright and colorful three-dimensional adventure game that is appropriate for young and old, and works on a variety of PCs as well as some laptops.

The game is rather insidious. It draws you in with charming graphical elements, then hooks you with addictive gameplay. Borrowing from a wide range of sources, from the Wizard of Oz to Harry Potter, Wizard101 is the tale of a young wizard – you – found among the realms and brought to Wizard City for training. But all is not right in the world. It seems evil had crept into the once peaceful haven of academia and now monsters, like ghosts, undead, skeletons and the like, are roaming the streets of the various hamlets.

Though a new trainee, the headmaster of the school – Merle Ambrose – is asking for your help in getting to the bottom of the corruption while battling the various monsters and running quests for the citizenry of the world. 

While this does not sound all that creative a storyline, it is charming and the way the game plays out, with its turn-based card combat, really drives players deeper into the story.

Of course, as you progress, you earn gold coins – which can be used to buy a companion pet or to buy new equipment (which come with bonus buffs) – and experience points. The experience points accumulate and level the character, making him or her eligible for new spell cards. 

There are several schools of magic: storm, fire, ice, life, myth, balanced, and death(deals with the dark arts). Students can take a quiz in the character creation to determine what class they will be put into – determined by their answers in the quiz – or you can skip the questionnaire and move directly into your chosen school. Along the way, as you level, you will pick up training points that you can use to buy spell cards from other schools. You may have fire as your primary school, but that does not mean you can’t buy a pixie card from the life school with your training point, or maybe pick up an frost beetle.

Which leads to combat …

You enter combat in the same basic way – you run up to a monster so that it can see you and the street is converted into a wheel-like board. There are four positions on the outer hub for players and four positions for monsters. Another player can jump in and join the fight simply by stepping into the wheel. But if another player joins the fight, another monster may as well.

Players start off with one power point as the combat begins. If you use a spell card that does not cost one Pip (power point), then you can accumulate more as you progress through the rounds. Each character is assigned a location on the hub and each monster has a location as well – which are signified by symbols. When a turn begins, each player can determine which spell he or she will cast, and at which monster. Spells, in addition to having a Pip cost, also have information on the percentage at which the spell may fizzle (fail) and how much damage it will do.

It is important to watch who is casting what spell at which monster (and yes, you can duel), so that you do not throw all your attacks at the same monster, resulting in no damage to any additional monsters.

In addition, there are two bottles you have to keep an eye on – health and mana. When your health is gone, you are transported back to the Commons area near the headmaster’s house to heal. When you run out of mana, you can’t cast any spells that cost Pips and mana. While out in the various neighborhoods, you will see orange and blue wisps floating around. One will restore health and the other mana (respectively). You can also teleport back to the Commons and visit the Fairegrounds, where you can play mini-games (there are seven games, based off familiar arcade titles like memory match, Dig Dug and the like). Playing the mini-games allows you to earn mana, fill a bottle that will replenish health and mana while away in between fights, earn gold and perhaps pick up a special spell card.

Special spell cards are those cards that can be used successfully once. Once they are used, they disappear from your deck. You can employ a special card by discarding a card from the hand you are dealt (based off the deck you have built) and then drawing another card.

There is a little more to the combat than that, but not much. This game was made very accessible for all players, and that is a very good thing. Whether new to card-based combat titles, or a veteran, Wizard101 should feel comfortable without having to learn a whole new language or do quantum physics (not really, but if you have played some card-combat games, you likely have run into the ones that seem to be so involved that you felt you were learning a new form of math) to figure out how to play.

The game is very kid-friendly, with built-in text responses, as well as the ability to chat with other players. The sound is minimal at this stage in the development (the game is in beta), consisting of a few spell sounds, some background music and that’s about it.

Graphically, the game took a bit from World of Warcraft in making the world bright and colorful with the appearance of three dimensions. Look close and you will see a lack of bump-mapping, but that really does not matter much simply because this game is definite eye candy.

When it comes to the gameplay, the game is thoroughly delightful, exuding a youthful sense of fun and excitement. Not only was a veteran MMOer and RPG gamer totally drawn in, but even the youngest member of the household was hooked.

“I really like it,” said Emma, 12. “I like doing the quests for the people, and I like doing the mini-games to make my mana go up. I like the creativity of the game, it is really fantasy-like and really fun to play because of that. And I also like that you are allowed to have pets, like unicorns and dragons and stuff.”

“I like how when you fight, you play with cards. It makes you think a little bit and its fun. I like the different spell cards, like the ice beetle. I really, really like the game.”

Wizard101 is slated for release in the third quarter of this year, but from what this beta is showing, KingsIsle is on track to have a certified hit title.