Here we go! Wor Wednesday #1. Lets begin by talking about absolute bare basics that are important to know about the game.
Before we begin, I’m going to go under the assumption that you’ve played the game once before and thus understand the gameplay. It’s pretty straightforward: move around the board avoiding the monsters, and kill them all.
Here are some important things to know to help you get started.
- In the first 6 levels, monsters start by moving very slowly, then gradually increase in speed as the game goes on. Starting at level 7, monsters will always start at max speed.
- When monsters move slowly, they will spit lightning at you if they are in the same corridor as you. Avoid lining up in close quarters with enemies for this reason. Once monsters are moving at max speed, they will no longer spit lightning.
- When you kill a blue monster, a yellow monster will spawn. When you kill that, a red monster will spawn. This is the hard and fast rule for the majority of the game, though in the first few levels, only the last couple blue monsters killed will spawn the harder variants.
- You can only have one bullet on screen at a time. Avoid firing down long corridors so that you will always be ready to fire.
- When you kill a monster, it creates a little explosion graphic on screen. This graphic acts as a wall for its short duration, allow you to rapidly fire into the location in order to kill other approaching enemies. This is great for when you would otherwise have to fire slowly due to a longer corridor in front of you. Learn to use monster explosions as short-term walls to fire into.
- The Worluck which spawns at the end of each level (and doubles your score on the next board) will mostly always run away from you. Be prepared to use the teleporters located on the left and right of the screen to move quickly between the far edges of the board in order to kill the Worluck before it escapes.
- PLAY DEFENSIVELY. Monsters are much, much faster than you, and you cannot deal with them by engaging them offensively, or running from them. Wor is a defensive game, and you need to strategically position your character in the safest possible locations with short corridors in front of you, allow you to fire rapidly at incoming swarms.
- Lastly, learn to use “bumps.” This is a key component of the game. Like all enemies, your Worrior can only take one hit, then you’re dead. However, unless hit by lightning (either from a monster spitting, or the Wizard spawning), your character can only be killed by a monster if you’re standing squarely on a game tile. If you position your character midway between two tiles, this allows you to take a single “bump” from a monster, which will knock you back squarely onto a tile, where they can then kill you. Using these bumps allows you to take a hit without dying, and generally helps give you extra time to spam the fire button and kill the approaching enemy.
These tips should get you started with Wizard of Wor, and should be enough for you to make your way through the first few levels. A good starting goal score would be something around 10,000 points. Come back next Wednesday for the next lesson!