The Mad Wizard: A Candelabra Chronicle (ROM Released)

*** The ROM for The Mad Wizard is now freely available at http://slydogstudios.org The cart may still be purchased at http://retrousb.com ***

Hey all!

You play as a wizard who had his land taken over and his spells and magical items stolen from him. You play through the game to collect your items and defeat the enemy that did this. It's an adventure game with a very _slight_ puzzle element. Acquiring different magical items will open up new areas for you to explore and continue on your quest.

Here are a couple of links for you to check it out if you haven't seen or heard of this project:

Short demo to experience the controls and most items:
http://slydogstudios.org/download/The%20Mad%20Wizard%20(Demo).nes

Video showing a bit of gameplay and a bit of what it's about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsfhIAHE5k0

A shrunken-down version of the complete map:
https://twitter.com/slydogstudios/status/565230188305207297

The game has been finished and is now available on retroUSB.com if anyone is interested:
http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=137

Interesting and fun demo. Some thoughts, even if it is already complete:

• allowing up to take you the second (or further) squares when levitating might be nice, but obviously one can't do so for the first.
• Trees that block and trees that are background elements are not, as far as I can tell, visually distinct. (This could just be a thing in the demo area.)
• If there's spare CHR (for up/down arrows) one could put the button combinations for each spell in the status bar. Might clutter, not sure. (Manuals are preferable anyway.)
• Contrariwise, the same-color of the teleport, force-block, and force-bridge neatly suggests how they cannot be used in conjunction.
• I certainly understand X and Y, but maybe there's a more accessible choice? (The interface mitigates this with the icons, of course.)

Congrats on getting it finished! I played a demo version a while back, but I'll give it a full play when I get my cart.

What type of contract exists between the creator of a new game and retrousb?

I also played the demo and thought it was rather cool. If only the Wizards speed where increased a little, I think it would make it a little better. Like levitating and such.

Thanks for the comments and feedback!



In the actual game, the only trees that can't be passed are on the far right side of the world map. We didn't feel it was too much of a leap to block off the map with a single, tall tree there (although you can go inside of it). Besides that, you can pass through all trees but not branches.

Yes, the controls themselves are in an in-game manual that you can read before playing. Only on the demo does it state how to use them in the rooms.

About the same colored items, they are colored the same to represent that they are the spells that you get. Later on in the game though, they can be used in conjunction and are tied together with a graphic that looks similar to a tournament bracket. That was an item that we didn't want to include in the demo because we wanted people to see how each magic worked, but not give free reign over all of them.

About X and Y, yes, I would've liked to have come up with something better, but the word "levitation" or a similar offshoot needed to be in there, and we were restricted in the amount of tiles that could say something on each screen or for each item picked up. I think people will understand well enough at least.

@rainwarrior: Awesome, thank you so much! We both hope you dig it!

@Erockbrox: There is a potion, which is in the demo, that you can pick up that doubles the speed of the wizard's levitation. It didn't seem right to have the levitation the same speed as what he walks, so it felt right to have it be a smaller amount, and to start off, it is even slower. The item can be the fourth one you pick up out of around 16 or 17 total items (can't recall off the top of my head how many there are).

Oh and Roth I drew up a possible Sly Dog logo for you. What do you think?

haha I like it, though he looks a bit more angry than he probably should.

Just bumping this to let everyone know that The Mad Wizard can be freely downloaded at http://slydogstudios.org now. That, and the prequel The Rise of Amondus (a 1 or 2 player game) has been freely available since the first of the year as well. They also both have a digital manual in them to learn how to play them or learn some of the story being setup for the rest of the series. Both games can still be purchased on cart at http://retrousb.com if you'd like to get a copy.

Good to know. I will give it a try!

Just a question. Do you think that by having your rom freely available that your cartridge sales will go down? I say this because its an interesting topic.

If people can play your game for free then why would they pay for it?

It could go either way. Everyone just downloads it for free and you never see a dime. Or by having it for free more people can be introduced to the game and if they like it then they will buy it.

I personally like buying cartridges from people who make homebrew games simply because I like supporting these people. It helps the scene grow.

I don't think making a ROM freely available results on less copies sold. All our games for different systems have been available for quite a long time before the physical version was released and most were sold out in hours.

What people don't never ever do is clicking the goddamned "Donate!" button in our site XD

I honestly do not know how much sales would be hindered by having a ROM freely available. I do like to have my games out there though, so I just wait some time before actually releasing the ROM. It's hard to know what to expect with flash carts so readily available now! So I try to strike a balance, so-to-speak. If people want to support, I'm sure they will eventually do so : )




I had a site where there was a donate button at one time, and it just ended up being a waste of screen real estate and extra bandwidth use haha