Wizball is a horizontally scrolling shooter written by Jon Hare and Chris Yates (co-founders of Sensible Software) and released in 1987 for the Commodore 64[1] and later in the year for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC.

Each level starts off as monochromatic, drawn in three shades of grey, and needs three colours (red, blue, and green) to be collected to complete it.

The wizard bounces up and down at a fixed rate, with the player only controlling a speed of rotation, and thus how fast it will move horizontally after touching the ground.

Collecting pearls (which appear when certain types of enemies have been shot) gives the player tokens that can be used to "buy" enhancements, such as greater control over movement and improved firepower.

The music in the Commodore 64 version was composed by Martin Galway, with input from Jon Hare and Chris Yates.

[10] In a 2006 interview with Retro Gamer, Jon Hare said the idea started as a Nemesis inspired shooter and it began with the ball and the control method.

A month later, it went on to be crowned the best game ever by Zzap!64,[19] which Jon Hare has stated is one of his proudest career moments, but at the same time that they were disappointed by the sales of the title, attributing it to the marketing of Ocean Software.

[21] In a 2002 Zzap!64 tribute publication, Wizball via a community vote was ranked the second best C64 game ever with the comment "How it missed a Gold Medal back in issue 27 is beyond us".

[22] In a second Zzap!64 tribute in 2005, Gary Penn, editor at the magazine at the time of the game's publication was quoted to say: Distinctive, distinguished, highly playable, audibly accomplished, witty, challenging, satisfying... As was the case with all reviewer's mood on the day played a part - and I must have been really pissy.