Wow Control Panel Thoughts

FrizzleFried

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When I first picked up my Wizard of Wor cabinet I took a look at the control panel and surprised by two things about it and I made a mental note to mention them here and, well, it seems that note got lost until a couple days ago when I was playing the game.

Look at the panel. The two things I note were that (1) the button is on the left and the stick is on the right. This is opposite of about 90% of the panels out there with the stick on the left and the button on the right. Some (like Dig Dug) have buttons on both sides... but rarely do you see a dedicated game with the orientation like Wizard of Wor uses. The bigger surprise to me is that Wizard of Wor is one of the first "co-op" games that require side-by-side play on the control panel. Note that Player 1 is on the RIGHT and Player 2 is on the LEFT... this is exactly opposite of every Co-Op game that I am aware of.

Was Wizard of Wor the first co-op game? I'd be surprised if it was... anyone know of one that came out before 1980/81?

WOW_CPALMOSTDONE1.jpg
 
Early Cinematronics games like Ripoff and Armor Attack have the one and two player positions similar to WOW.
 
What cracked me up was that the Atari 800 version of Wizard of Wor also has the first player use the second joystick port! I thought there was something wrong in emulation when I played it a little while ago, but went "hmmm..." on a hunch.
 
Wait till you look at the underside. Wizard of Wor sticks have a special leaf. There are 2 activation points for every direction instead of just one.
 
You think that's strange take a look at the cocktail orientation....

That is pretty jacked up... Took me a second to even see the problem.

62174602.jpg


Nothing like playing a horizontal game vertical... They could have at least rotated the scores or something.
 
This may be kind of a dumb question... If you insert one coin, will it allow you to hit the 2 player button and play on that side?

I remember the game was flexible with letting you add extra men by inserting more coins but its been a very long time since I played it.
 
I want to know what game got all the white button tops and red button holders they had left over from making the WoW panels. :)
 
That is pretty jacked up... Took me a second to even see the problem.



Nothing like playing a horizontal game vertical... They could have at least rotated the scores or something.

Although if you think about it, does it really matter? The way you move and the player orients itself; pure genius to be lazy and just slap it in a cocktail!
 
Wait till you look at the underside. Wizard of Wor sticks have a special leaf. There are 2 activation points for every direction instead of just one.

yeah, the reason it does that is so you can just tap the stick to change direction for shooting without moving your player.

and the atari 5200 version has player one on the right port.
 
Although if you think about it, does it really matter? The way you move and the player orients itself; pure genius to be lazy and just slap it in a cocktail!

And that works for other games like space Duel, but at least they orient the players score so they can read it. I wouldn't say pure genius... I would say pure laziness, though I can respect that in its own right. :D
 
I am guessing the DOUBLE POINT DUNGEON text, etc. are sideways (ie: same as the uprights)? Yup... lazy i'd say.
 
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