A Wizard's Lizard Walkthrough: Introduction

A Wizard's Lizard is a roguelike Action/Adventure-RPG, similar in gameplay to The Legend of Zelda. Your task, outlined every time you enter a level, is to Defeat Death. To do this you must get through a succession of dungeons, defeat each dungeon's boss, and eventually square off with Death himself in a final battle. Sound simple? If you've ever played a roguelike game, you'll know it isn't.

Dungeon Crawling

The meat of A Wizard's Lizard consists of moving through randomly-generated dungeons. No two dungeons are ever alike, and each time you die and restart you'll find a new set of dungeons waiting to be plundered.

Dungeons consist of a series of square or rectangular rooms. Each room may contain enemies, traps, items, gold, switches, and / or a variety of other features. Each room also contains at least one door to an adjacent room. Darkened doors lead to another room; doors lit by a yellow glow lead to the next floor of the dungeon. Doors will only open if a) All of the monsters in the room are killed, or b) A combination of floor switches inside the room are touched by your character.

Combat

A roguelike game wouldn't be very roguelike without combat, and A Wizard's Lizard has it in spades. Your character (initially just the titular lizard, Raga) must wage war against huge crowds of enemies, equipped with three broadly-defined weapons:

- An actual weapon. Your character will hurl said weapon at their enemy whenever it is used. Weapons have a small cooldown time after each use, typically less than a second. Each weapon has a different damage capacity, range, and cooldown.

- Soul Orbs. Found by defeating enemies or destroying obstacles, Soul Orbs release a wave of dark energy in all directions around your character when used. Soul Orbs have a medium cooldown time.

- Totems. As reusable as your weapon, totems are free-standing offensive structures that aid you in combat. A totem will release magic, similar to a Soul Orb but forever reusable, that can destroy enemies. The effects and cooldown time vary from totem to totem, though typically totems take more than ten seconds to recharge.

These three elements are combined with quick action, forcing the player to strafe constantly while wiping out foes with as much ferocity and efficiency as possible.

Health and Death

Your character begins a game of A Wizard's Lizard with a set amount of health. Each time the character gets hit by an enemy or a trap, they lose a portion of their health. Health can be restored via special items purchased from vendors or found when destroying enemies or objects. health cannot be increased above a set maximum without extra items.

Should the character run out of health, they will immediately die. That said, they will return to the fray as a ghost, their health fully restored. This effectively gives a player two lives in the dungeon before hitting Game Over. Death makes the game more difficult, however, as ghostly enemies that are normally part of the background will join the regular enemies in attacking you.

Death can only be reversed by finding a Resurrection Circle. Standing on a Resurrection Circle while a ghost will eventually return the character to life with a single HP.

Should you die a second time, your game will immediately end in defeat. All items and gold you collected will be lost, and you'll be returned to Amberfall, the game's sole friendly town and the central hub for much of the action.

Progression

Unlike most mainstream RPGs where your character's strength scales over time, A Wizard's Lizard leaves you with around the same level of strength for much of the game. Items are lost after each playthrough, forcing you to effectively start afresh. That said, there are alternative methods for increasing your might which will give you a leg up with each new journey:

- There are residents of Amberfall being held captive throughout the game's dungeons. Freeing them will give you a bit of additional money each time you start a new game, allowing you to purchase progressively stronger equipment in Amberfall.

- Some of the vendors in the dungeon will sell you Blueprints. Blueprints allow you to purchase items in Amberfall that you would normally have to search for at random in the dungeon.

- Each of the levels (save the first) has a miniboss. Defeating said miniboss will unlock a shortcut to later floors in the dungeon, allowing you to bypass sections you've already mastered and completed when beginning a new session.

Sound like a good start? You'll quickly get the gist of things as you go along. For now, it's off to Amberfall to have a look at what's what.