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Sorcery from memory

I am looking for a game from the end of 80's/early 90's game on Atari ST. Where two wizards, one purple, one red have to turn the color of a checkerboard tiles to its own color using spells. The main screen in game as the aspect shown on the linked image.

It seems that the game is an advanced version of Hex on amiga/Atari ST (1985). The sorcerers is clearly inspired from the bearing lantern character from on the 1985 game "Hex" on amiga. But I am still unable to find it...

character from Hex

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  • Was this game on a dedicated disk or was it part of a collection containing many games? There were tons of homebrew and BASIC games of the era, some you could type in yourself (like from Compute! magazine). This kind of sounds like something simple like that and not an actually published game.
    – Dan
    Apr 12 at 12:38
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    @Dan Bleh, I can just imagine typing in the DATA lines for those wizards.
    – Sneftel
    Apr 12 at 14:24
  • Hex 2 maybe? indieretronews.com/2022/09/… & github.com/Antonio-Luque/Hex
    – Gantendo
    Apr 12 at 23:14
  • Without the wizards and the spells, but with squares to change colour until you take over most of the board, "7 colors"? Very different look though.
    – jcaron
    Apr 12 at 23:18
  • @jcaron The game was closer to Hex. There was no wasp, Jelly fish or unicorn in the game though. Just the character with lanterns.
    – Spif
    Apr 13 at 7:55

3 Answers 3

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I guess your are looking for "Spectral Sorcery" from Jeff Makaiwi, and your drawing is absolutely on point ;)

Title Screenshot with scanlines

Menu Screenshot with scanlines

Gameplay Screenshot with scanlines

Help Screenshot with scanlines

I got it on disk #64 of French magazine "ST Magazine" which can be downloaded here ("sorcery.tos" is a self-extracting archive).

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  • 11
    1897... this is definitely retro.
    – Chris Clayton
    Apr 13 at 23:30
  • @nbarjolin Than you so much ! So great you found it ! Madeleine de Proust on me !
    – Spif
    Apr 14 at 7:10
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    I don't know how I ever tolerated reading screens full of allcaps text in cute fonts. It didn't seem to bother me then, but wow it's awful now.
    – Wayne Conrad
    Apr 18 at 18:58
  • @WayneConrad Yes I thought the same, so here is an album of screenshots with scanlines on: imgur.com/a/ohMrwH8 Maybe I should put them instead in the post
    – nbarjolin
    Apr 19 at 17:30
  • @nbarjolin Isn't that interesting. The same text with scan lines seems a lot easier on my eyes. I never would have guessed that.
    – Wayne Conrad
    Apr 19 at 20:03
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I'm almost certain you are talking about Hex by Mark of the Unicorn. The only difference between your description and the actual game is the shape of the "squares", which were, as the name implies, hexes:

enter image description here

The company would only make this one game that I am aware of, but they lasted for years doing midi stuff.

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  • This looks like a very good track ! I remember well the square shape though and the two wizards. But the principle of the game is the same than Hex, yes.
    – Spif
    Apr 12 at 18:27
  • The game I try to identify as the same rules than Hex.
    – Spif
    Apr 13 at 8:03
  • Except there's only 1 wizard here, unless that bird thing counts as the other wizard?
    – Darrel Hoffman
    Apr 13 at 15:57
  • If you mean the image above, that's the demo. Look at the box art on the Wiki page, you'll see the wizard there.
    – Maury Markowitz
    Apr 14 at 15:24
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"I have no memory of this place." - Gandalf, TFoTR.

I was heavily into ST gaming from 87-92 and cannot recall a game like this, which would appear to combine elements of Q-Bert, Crystal Castles, and some other isometric puzzle games (of which there were several). But then again I don't claim to have played every game ever.

Aside from the tile-colour-changing element, might you be remembering Hero Quest...?

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    The game I am looking for was more basic than heroquest. Very close to Hex, mentionned by Maury Markowitz in the thread. The lantern bearing character in Hex was definetely the model for the wizard of the game.
    – Spif
    Apr 12 at 19:16

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