About
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is Sir-Tech's original 1981 role-playing game, the first in the long-running Wizardry series. Wizardry Legacy is an open-source recreation of Sir-Tech's original 1981 Wizardry RPG, aiming to closely resemble the original game while adding new functionality, including a built-in adventure editor for creating custom quests. It's built with the Allegro 4.4 library and SQLite, runs in a fixed 640x480 16-bit fullscreen mode with keyboard-only controls, and is described by its developer as 'almost playable,' with a finishable demo adventure included.
How it differs from the original
The project incorporates copyrighted texture assets from other games (Hexen and Heretic) alongside material from the original Wizardry 1, 2, 3, and 5, and it plans to eventually let players create and share their own custom adventures via the included editor.
Getting started
Windows users can download prebuilt binaries from the developer's website; players on Linux or other platforms need to compile from source using the provided CMake build. The game only supports keyboard input, though a joystick emulator such as JoytoKey can be used to map a gamepad to keyboard controls.
History
Development began around 2002, was abandoned in 2004, received a patch in 2006, was revived from 'the haunted archives' in 2012, and was put on hold again around 2015 before later moving to GitLab. The developer has also floated spinning out reusable engine modules — a 3D maze engine, a menu system, and a business-logic launcher — as separate, Apache-licensed side projects.
Known limitations
- audio: Sound and music might not work correctly on Linux.
- gameplay: In the editor, when debugging a lock encounter, it crashes; during the game it works fine.
- gameplay: In the intro/ending, if there is only 1 paragraph of text, it crashes; adventures define a minimum of 2 to bypass the bug.