W is for Wizard of Wor

Wizard of Wor was another arcade game whose discovery for me was bass-ackward of how the game was actually released.  I played many, many games of Wizard of Wor on a friend's Atari 2600 as a youth.  It was only as an adult that I was privileged to be able to play an actual Wizard of Wor game at one of the California Extreme video game and pinball game expos.

Wizard of Wor was another Dungeons and Dragons inspired type of game, like Venture (the previous game I blogged about), which also focused largely on the dungeon experience.  Unlike Venture, though, Wizard of Wor had no rooms and no treasures, just smallish dungeon mazes and endless supplies of monsters to shoot.  There is a wizard (of Wor), who is able to teleport around the maze while going after the heroes, hence the name of the game.

Wizard of Wor also utilized the element of competition/cooperation, similar to Joust, where two players could play simultaneously, and could either work together to destroy the monsters, or could engage in direct competition including shooting each other's warriors.  I recall the latter behavior often being the source of my friend and I arguing when playing the Atari 2600 rendition of the game.

I always found Wizard of Wor to be a fast paced game, like Venture, and as such, one was able to look past the somewhat simplistic graphics to concentrate on the exciting game play.  I preferred to play cooperatively with other players rather than competitively.  I look forward to hopefully being able to play the game again at a future California Extreme.

What games did you first discover in ported form and later discovered the actual arcade game from which the port was made?