Wizard Siege

Draw runes. Break castles. Rule the realm.

A wizard battle game for iPhone. Follow the red wizard's story chapter by chapter, or meet up to three rival wizards on an island of their own. Either way, you walk with your left thumb and cast with your right, by drawing runes.

Coming soon to iPhone

The home screen: a sunlit wizard's study with a glowing blue orb in the balcony arch, and buttons for Story mode, Battle, Wi-Fi battle and Training.
The home screen is the wizard's study. Tilt the phone and the room moves in depth; touch the orb and drag to roll it.

The prologue

A thousand years of peace.

The game opens on a painted prologue. Four wizards drive the goblins from the land and seal them behind a wall of living magic. A thousand years later, rumors start to reach the towns.

  1. Four wizards in red, blue, green and yellow robes on a forest ridge at dawn, looking out over ancient ruins by the sea.

    The first age

    From beyond the known world

    From a faraway land came four powerful wizards: red, blue, green and yellow. Beyond the sea they found a realm of ancient ruins, wild beauty and deep, dark forests.

  2. Goblins with blades and shields swarming out of a dark forest of ruined pillars.

    The first age

    The darkness beneath the trees

    In those shadowed forests, goblins fell upon the travelers. From root and ruin they swarmed, their blades hungry for the strangers who had entered their domain.

  3. The four wizards raising their staffs as red, blue, green and yellow lightning joins into a shimmering turquoise veil between ruined pillars.

    The first age

    A wall of living magic

    The four answered with terrible magic. They drove the goblins from the land, then joined their power to raise an immense barrier. Beyond its burning veil, the goblins were sealed away.

  4. Townspeople bringing flowers to a marble statue on a plaza, before a golden city of domes and towers at sunset.

    An age of plenty

    The long peace

    The people rejoiced. Under the wizards' rule, great cities rose and beautiful works of art filled their halls. The land gave them all they needed, and for a thousand years they lived in peace and plenty.

  5. A worried crowd in a market square: a farmer points toward the woods while a woman and two old men listen.

    One thousand years later

    Stories in the marketplace

    After a thousand years of peace, unfamiliar rumors reached the towns. Some people spoke of goblins glimpsed near the woods; others claimed there were more sightings each season. No one knew what to make of the stories.

  6. The red wizard, stroking his beard, listening to a farmer and a woman in a castle courtyard full of roses.

    Reports from the townspeople

    A patient listener

    The great red wizard listened as villagers brought their accounts to his castle courtyard. He worried for the townspeople, but he did not yet know whether these uncertain reports pointed to any greater trouble.

  7. The red wizard alone in his study, reading an old map by the window, an astrolabe beside him.

    In the quiet of the castle

    Questions before answers

    Alone in his peaceful study, the red wizard spread old maps across his table and considered what he had heard. Who had seen these creatures, and where? Before drawing any conclusions, he would travel to the town and look into the sightings himself.

  8. The red wizard striding out of his castle gate with a pack on his back, the town and its white towers below in the sun.

    Chapter I

    The road to town

    On a beautiful morning, the red wizard stepped out of his castle into the sunshine. With green fields beside the road and the town ahead, he set off to investigate the townspeople's reports of goblin sightings.

Story mode

Then the story begins.

Story mode follows Caradoc, the red wizard, chapter by chapter across one world: his castle in the west, the road east over the brook to the village of Millbrook, its square and farms, and the Greywood beyond. Every place the story goes is painted, and the people in it speak side-on, with portraits, in the style of the 16-bit brawlers and castle crawlers.

Millbrook's square, painted: Tam runs up to Caradoc, his portrait over the line Wizard! Wizard! I saw a goblin! A real one!
Chapter One. Tam has seen a goblin in the woods.
Emberhaven's quay: a brass golem, just woken, beside Caradoc and Oswin, saying SYSTEMS... WARM. GEARS... TURNING. GOOD MORNING!
Chapter Two. A Zap of lightning wakes Oswin's golem.
Millbrook dressed for Founders' Day with bunting and a bonfire, Rivet saying MASTER, THE STATUE OF YOU HAS A MUCH STRONGER CHIN.
Chapter Three. Founders' Day, and Rivet has notes on the statue.
The beacon tower's battlements above a valley, Garrick saying Forty years I've kept this beacon. Not one goblin. Just crows. I've named them all.
Chapter Four. The watch on the ridge.

Between the scenes, you walk.

A quest log holds the step in hand, and a golden arrow floats at the edge of the screen, pointing the way. Beasts don't wait in an arena: a wolf pack follows you round buildings and over bridges until the fight is won.

The early chapters teach a rune or two at a time, with a ghost finger to show the stroke. From Chapter Six the lessons are over, and the hero can fall.

Caradoc at his red castle on a green map, the quest Follow the road east to Millbrook at the top and a golden arrow pointing east.
The road to Millbrook.
A forest track in the Greywood, a magenta targeting rune over a bear, and a lesson card: tap the bear to target her.
Chapter Five. A bear in the deep wood, and a lesson in targeting.

The people of the March

Ten chapters so far

  1. OneThe Road to Town
  2. TwoThe Merchant's Gift
  3. ThreeFounders' Day
  4. FourThe Watch on the Ridge
  5. FiveAshes in the Greywood
  6. SixWolves at the Door
  7. SevenNo Answering Fire
  8. EightThe Road East
  9. NineThe Nameless Temple
  10. TenA Strange Harvest

One thumb walks. The other draws.

Put your left thumb anywhere on the left of the screen, and a stick appears under it. The right side is your casting pad. Draw a rune on it, then tap to release the spell.

The spell flies at the nearest foe, or tap a foe to mark them and every spell goes at them from then on. Leave a readied spell alone for about a second and a half and it goes off by itself.

Twelve runes, four elements.

Each element has three runes. Level one is a straight line, told apart by its angle. Level two is a pointer or a cup, and level three is a full figure. The way a rune points matters: a flat line is fire, an upright one is water.

Higher runes hit harder, leave more of their element on the target, and cost more mana.

  • Fire

    • SparkLevel 1, a flat line
    • FireballLevel 2, a peak: Λ
    • MeteorLevel 3, a triangleLobbed over everything. It leaves the ground burning.

    Leaves the target: Burning

  • Water

    • SplashLevel 1, an upright line
    • WaveLevel 2, a cup: VShoves.
    • Tidal WaveLevel 3, a wave

    Leaves the target: Wet

  • Ice

    • Ice ShardLevel 1, a line falling right: \
    • Shard FanLevel 2, a pointer: <
    • Frost NovaLevel 3, a circleA ring of shards all round you.

    Leaves the target: Chilled (slowed)

  • Lightning

    • ZapLevel 1, a line rising right: /
    • BoltLevel 2, a pointer: >Arcs.
    • ThunderstrikeLevel 3, a zigzag: ZOut of the sky, after a warning ring.

    Leaves the target: Stunned

Chain three. Fuse two.

Draw up to three runes in a row before you let go. The strongest rune shapes the spell, the others add their damage and their element, and a longer chain covers more ground. Chain a Spark with a Thunderstrike and you get a Thunderstrike that sets the foe burning.

When the two strongest runes share a level but not an element, they fuse into a spell of their own, and the fusion grows with the level.

Full chains.

Three runes are a spell of their own, not just a bigger one, and no two sets of three cast the same spell, whatever order you draw them in. Three of one rune make a triad, a spell no shorter chain casts.

In any other chain of three, the runes that don't shape the spell infuse it. A line lays a trail of its element behind the spell, a pointer splinters it where it ends, and a figure changes the ground where it lands. Two Fireballs and an Ice Shard make a fireball that leaves rime behind it and bursts into sparks.

  • Cinder Storm

    A sweep of cinders, loosed one after another.

  • Fire Serpent

    A serpent of flame that hunts its foe down.

  • Meteor Shower

    Three meteors fall round the foe, one by one, each leaving fire.

  • Geyser

    The ground bubbles under the foe, then bursts up and flings them.

  • Maelstrom

    A wandering whirlpool that drags foes in and soaks them.

  • Tsunami

    Three towering waves, one behind another.

  • Icicle Lance

    A swift lance through every foe in a line, leaving rime.

  • Blizzard

    Hail over the foe that chills all beneath it.

  • Absolute Zero

    A ring of ice spikes grows from you and freezes every foe it reaches.

  • Lightning Lash

    A whip that holds a foe and jolts them until it snaps.

  • Ball Lightning

    A slow globe that zaps every foe near it, then bursts.

  • Tempest

    A storm cloud that follows the foe and strikes three times.

Three Meteor runes readied on the casting pad, labelled Meteor Shower, 66 mana, with the violet castle under attack nearby.
Three Meteors readied: a Meteor Shower.
A black storm cloud over Aldous the Gilded, lightning striking down from it.
A Tempest follows Aldous the Gilded.
In the training arena, a serpent of flame winding from Morwen toward the straw dummy.
A Fire Serpent hunts the training dummy.

Three more strokes.

Close up: Meteor, Ice Shard and Wave readied on the pad, ringed in red and marked UNSTABLE - opposites!, beside Morwen.
Meteor, Ice Shard and Wave: fire and water in one chain.

Opposites backfire.

Fire and water are opposites, and so are ice and lightning. A chain holding both of a pair is marked unstable. Release it and it explodes on you: you take the damage, and you're stunned. Tap ✕ to throw it away.

Elements react.

  • Lightning hits a wet target one and a half times harder.
  • Ice freezes a wet target, so water and ice freeze in a single spell.
  • Water puts out burning, and fire thaws ice.
The spellbook open over the study, at the pages on Full Chains and Infusions, with rune seals drawn on parchment.
All of it is in the spellbook, from the home screen or mid-battle. Drag a page over by its edge to turn it.

Break their castles.

In a battle, two to four wizards start in their own castles on an island generated for that battle and divided evenly between them. Your castle heals you and restores your mana while you stand near it, and its ward shoots any enemy wizard who comes close. From outside a ward, only the longest spells reach the walls.

When you fall, you rise again at your castle six seconds later. Once your castle has fallen, the next death is your last. The last wizard standing wins.

  1. Whole
  2. Battered
  3. Breached
  4. Ruin

The four founders, as rivals

Four AI wizards in the thick of a battle: meteors bursting in flame among them, damage numbers flying, and Might! and Haste! as they take power-ups.
Four AI wizards, two minutes in.

Treasure chests

Chests stand about the realm, shared out evenly between the territories. Walk into one to take what's inside; another appears somewhere else about 18 seconds later. Your bag holds six, and the quick slot between your thumbs uses one with a tap.

  • Health Potion restores 40 health at once.
  • Haste Feather walk 50% faster for 12 seconds.
  • Ember of Might your spells hit 40% harder for 12 seconds.
  • Stoneskin Shield take 40% less damage for 10 seconds.
  • Clarity Crystal mana returns three times as fast for 12 seconds.
The bag open at the foot of the screen, holding a Clarity Crystal, a Health Potion, a Haste Feather and an Ember of Might, beside a treasure chest.
The bag, open beside a chest.

Alone, or with friends.

The training arena: Morwen by the violet castle, the dummy on its post throwing an ice shard, and the toggle Dummy attacks: on.
Training, with the dummy fighting back.
The Wizard Siege icon: a violet castle under a burning rune.

Last wizard standing wins.

Coming soon to iPhone