Ferazel's Wand is an Action Game developed by Ambrosia Software. Ferazel, the last of the free habnabits, must travel and cast magic to defeat the evil hordes of enemies, lead by the insectoid Queen Xichra. The game involves exploring, discovering secret passages, defeating bosses and monsters, and dodging traps.
This game provides examples of:
- 100% Completion: When you leave a stage, the game tells you the percentage of enemies defeated, xirchons collected, and secrets discovered.
- Auto-Scrolling Level: Several. One involves being chased by a wall of fire.
- Battle Boomerang: One of Ferazel's spells creates boomerangs
- In the Hood: The semi-human "Habnabits" wear full-length cloaks with the hoods always up, shadowing their faces except for two features: large, vaguely human eyes, and a snout like an anteater. They're the good guys, though, as signified by the fact that their cloaks are a wide variety of colors rather than the generic black.
- Poison Mushroom: If you pick up one of these, it's pretty much your own fault, given that they're black with a skull. They're an instant kill, and are typically buried in soft ground (visibly) as an obstacle to digging.
- Save Point: The game is just plain evil about this. Every so often you'll find a statue plinth, and standing on the plinth saves the game and creates a statue of you. Each plinth can never be used again unless you restart the game from the beginning—and this is a game with a lot of hidden goodies in side areas, which would encourage replaying old levels if there weren't so few opportunities to save your progress from those replays.
- Some Dexterity Required: While it's technically not dexterity so much as timing, the shield can be extremely irritating. In order to block you must duck, then press the arrow key opposite the direction you're facing. Ducking takes about a second, and if you press the opposing arrow while you're in the process of ducking you will turn around as you duck. Attempting to turn around after having finished ducking will simply make you shield in the opposite direction from the one you intended to, so unless you waited to finish ducking and risked that throwing knife reaching you, you must stand up again, turn towards the knife again, and attempt to duck again, almost guaranteeing it will reach you before you can block it. Good thing you can usually jump out of the way.
- Wall Crawl: The game doesn't even try to explain why the main character can do this (although it might help that "Habnabits" like him are clearly not human.) It seems to have been implemented so the designers could put a bunch of coins and power-ups in high-up places that couldn't be reached by jumping alone, under the "they'll never look here" principle.
