This is the two hundred sixteenth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred sixteenth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is plummeting towards us. It’s Wizard Battle, by Scott Ethington, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

A puzzle game about a wizard falling down a hole.

Look, it happens to the best of us.

I did not realize until I started writing this post that Scott Ethington is also the creator of Ripped Pants At Work, the eighty-sixth Scratching That Itch pick, which was one of my favorites from year two of the series. Wizard Battle is a much smaller, shorter game, but it retains a similar comedic tone. There’s an option on the main menu to read some backstory, which has very little to do with the game itself but does give an entertaining description of the history of magic and the wizards who tamed it. Launch the game proper, and players are treated to an animated intro sequence showing two wizards slinging spells at each other. Naturally, they are fighting over a sandwich. Our protagonist gets blindsided and falls into a hole. Thus the game begins.

Wizard Battle is a turn-based puzzle game, in which players must use the wizard’s magic to help him fall safely through the rocky pit. Each of the 40 puzzles presents a 4×4 grid of blocks below the plummeting wizard. Players must select one of the rows of blocks (Wizard Battle is controlled entirely with the arrow keys) and shift them left or right, trying to align gaps for the wizard to fall through. Amusingly, the wizard can (and indeed, must) smack into a few rocks on the way down; the four hearts in the corner of the screen track the wizard’s health, and therefore how many moves players have to solve each puzzle. The wizard falls after each move, so he’s often bouncing off of several stone blocks while players align things. Maybe he has some defensive magic that can protect him from a few bumps? But it’s funny to imagine his fall as a sequence of painful bounces, as he barely manages to avoid a fatal impact.

Scott Ethington wrings a surprising amount of variety from the simple puzzle mechanics. A block that moves off of one side of the screen will appear on the other, so players must contend with wrap-around movements. If the wizard falls partway through the grid, players can shift blocks to push him left or right, changing his trajectory. New puzzle elements are introduced along the way, like lava squares that cannot be shifted, or (my favorite) a heart that can refill the wizard’s health, but only if it can be repositioned such that the wizard collects it before expiring. A correct solution takes only a few seconds to execute, but a lot longer to figure out. Fortunately restarts are fast, and trial and error is a valid way to suss out the correct sequence of moves.

Wizard Battle is easily completed in less than an hour (even if you get stuck on a puzzle for much longer than you expect, as I did), but it’s a lot of fun! I like the presentation too. The hand-drawn art is charming, and the looping music track is catchy. Animations are simple but effective, and I liked the lo-fi cartoon intro and ending sequences. It’s a silly game with some unusual puzzle mechanics, and well worth a look if you fancy a spot of puzzling. If you missed it in the bundle, it’s sold for a minimum price of $4.99, including versions for Windows and Mac.

That’s 216 down, and only 1525 to go!