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Chaos — The Battle of Wizards is a simple turn based strategy game where the player(s) take the role of wizards who vie with one another to rule the game. The aim of the game is to be the 'last wizard standing' by destroying all other wizards. The game allows for anything between two and eight wizards, any of whom can be human or computer controlled. Computer controlled wizards can be assigned a level of one to eight, however this only affects their combat ability, rather than their tactical ability. Computer controlled wizards do not cooperate; they may attempt to kill each other as well as the human players. Image File history File linksMetadata Chaoscomputergame. ...
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Rules of the game
Image File history File links Chaosloadiingscreen. ...
Image File history File links Chaosloadiingscreen. ...
Spells Each wizard is given a random selection of spells at the start of the game with which to defeat the other wizards. Spells are either Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic, and have a difficulty value expressed as a percentage chance of success when cast. A spell can only be cast once, with the exception of the "Disbelieve" spell which is always available to every wizard. New spells can only be acquired via the "Magic Wood" spell.
During the game, the type of spells cast affects the subsequent difficulty of other spells. Casting many lawful spells results in a more lawful environment, which in turn makes other lawful spells easier to cast. The same principle applies to chaotic spells. Spells of the opposite alignment are not more difficult to cast however. Neutral spells are unaffected either way, and are always cast at the same difficulty percentage. This feature has a big impact on the strategy of the game, as a viable tactic is to cast lots of easy spells of a certain alignment, in order to make it easier to cast the more powerful spells of that alignment.
Spells fall into various categories and have various ranges.
Creature spells
 Back cover of the big box version, showing some of the various spells. These summon creatures that fight for the wizards. Some creatures are harder to cast than others, generally speaking the more powerful the creature the harder it is to cast. Creatures can be cast as an "Illusion", with a 100% chance of being cast, with the disadvantage that they can be destroyed if another wizard casts a "Disbelieve" spell at them. Creature spells always have a range of one, this is to prevent a wizard casting a powerful creature right next to another wizard and killing him easily. Creatures can fall into one or more of several categories: Image File history File links Chaos_back. ...
Image File history File links Chaos_back. ...
- Undead creatures, such as Ghosts, Spectres and Zombies can only be attacked by other undead creatures or by spells and magic weapons. Dead creatures that have been raised with the "Raise Dead" spell also become Undead.
- Flying creatures, such as Bats, Dragons and Manticores.
- Rideable creatures such as Centaurs, Horses and Unicorns, can be ridden by wizards. Flying mounts such as the Pegusus and Gryphon are also available. Any attack against the wizard/mount combination is directed at the mount, which must be killed before the wizard can be affected, increasing the wizards survivability. A particularly powerful mount is a rideable creature that has been raised from the dead, effectively making the wizard undead also.
- Armed creatures, such as Centaurs, Dragons and Elves. Centaurs and Elves are armed with bows, dragons with fire, and can launch an attack on a target several squares away at the end of their turn.
Creatures have attack and defense ratings which govern how effective they are, move ratings which control how many squares they can move a turn, manouvre ratings which govern how easily a creature can break off combat and magic resistance for governing defence against magical assaults. Flying creatures movement ratings govern how many square they can fly. Wizards also have these ratings, as well as a magic rating governing how many spells they initially have.
Full list of creature spells - Mortal Creatures - Elf, Gorilla, Lion, Bear, Dire Wolf, Fawn, King Cobra, Giant, Orc, Ogre, Crocodile, Giant Rat, Goblin, Hydra.
- Undead Creatures - Zombie, Ghost, Skeleton, Vampire, Wraith, Spectre.
- Flying Creatures - Bat, Eagle, Harpy, Green Dragon, Red Dragon, Golden Dragon.
- Ridable Creatures - Horse, Unicorn, Centaur.
- Ridable Flying Creatures - Pegasus, Gryphon, Manticore.
Object spells Object spells create objects on the board. They are :- - Magic Wood. Automatically creates up to 8 trees around a wizard. Any wizard can enter a tree and will receive a new spell after a random number of turns. Magic trees also provide a certain amount of protection.
- Shadow Wood. Allows a player to place up to 8 trees up to 8 squares away, as long as they are not adjacent to each other. Shadow Trees are treated as creatures, however they cannot move. They can attack anything that moves next to them, although they cannot harm undead creatures.
- Gooey Blob and Magic Fire spread randomly once cast. Any creature engulfed by one of these objects is trapped (Gooey Blob) or destroyed (Magic Fire). A wizard engulfed by a Gooey Blob is killed. Gooey Blobs can be destroyed by attacks, though fire cannot. If a Gooey Blob disappears or is destroyed the creature can move again. If cast early enough, these spells can be very powerful as they spread across the board. In the original Spectrum version they do not trap/destroy your own creatures or wizard.
- Wall creates four 'blocks' of wall. They can be flown over and cannot be cast directly adjacent to the casting wizard - this is to prevent a wizard walling himself into a corner, making him immune to all non-flying attacks. However, enemy wizards can be trapped in this way.
- Dark Citadels and Magic Castles last for a random number of turns. When a wizard is inside one of these buildings they cannot be attacked.
Attacking spells - Magic Bolts and Lightning can be used to attack other creatures (including undead creatures) and wizards. Lightning is more effective but has a shorter range.
- Vengeance and Decree allow one attack on an enemy creature or wizard and Dark Power and Justice allow up to three attacks. They are less effective on creatures with stronger magic resistance. A successful attack on a creature destroys it, a successful attack on a wizard causes ALL of their summoned creations to vanish, though the wizard is not destroyed.
Wizard spells These directly affect the wizard who casts them and can be used to increase effectiveness. - Magic Armour and Magic Shield provide increased defense by 4 and 2 respectively from attacks, including spells.
- Magic Sword and Magic Knife give increased combat ratings by 4 and 2 respectively. They also allow attacks against undead creatures.
- Magic Bow gives a wizard ranged combat with attack 2, range 6, including against undead creatures. It also allows hand to hand attacks against undead.
- Magic Wings allow the wizard to fly.
- Shadow Form increases the wizards movement to 3, increases defense by 1, and means that the wizard can move past enemy creatures without becoming 'engaged to enemy'. Shadow Form ends if the wizard attacks in hand to hand combat.
Miscellaneous spells - Law and Chaos spells increase the law or chaos level in the game. They come in various levels, increasing the level by either one or two points.
- Raise Dead allows a dead creature to be reanimated under the wizards control. The raised creature retains all the powers and abilities it had in life, and in addition is now also undead.
- Subversion attempts to steal another wizard's creature, but will always fail against a creature which is an illusion.
- Disbelieve can be used against illusionary creatures to destroy them. This spell does not disappear after use and is always in a wizards spellbook
- Turmoil is a very rare spell only obtainable from a Magic Wood. This causes all objects and creatures on the screen to be moved to a random location. This can cause the game to crash if there are a large number of objects on the screen, such as Magic Fires or Gooey Blobs.
Missing spells The following spells are not available in the game, but their names can be seen with a hex editor. Hexplorer, an open-source hex editor for Microsoft Windows A hex editor (or binary file editor or byte editor) is a type of computer program that allows a user to manipulate binary (normally non-plain text) computer files. ...
- Troll — a creature spell. This can be activated by changing a few bytes of memory.
- Blind
- Tempest
- Teleport — this spell turned up in the sequel, Lords of Chaos.
- Dead Revenge
- Consecration
- Dispel
- Counter Spell
- Magic Sleep
Troll, Tempest, Teleport, Dead Revenge, Consecrate, and Sleep were implemented in the Amiga remake, Total Chaos. Lords of Chaos (video game) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...
The original Amiga 1000 (1985) with various peripherals The Amiga is a family of home/personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation as an advanced home entertainment and productivity machine. ...
Total Chaos is a series of simple turn based strategy game / card game / board games where the player(s) take the role of wizards who battle with one another to rule the world. ...
Turn Sequence Each (human) wizard takes it in turn to view the board (if desired), examine their spells and select one to cast on the next turn (selecting a spell is not compulsory). Typically, the other human players look away during spell choice to avoid unfair advantage. Once all players have chosen their spell, they attempt to cast them in order. Image File history File links This game (and therefore this screenshot) has been released in to the public domain. ...
Whereas the human players select their spells before each turn begins, the computer wizards actually select their spells during the play stage of each turn. This is not documented, although it becomes apparent in play, as the computer wizards often cast spells that would have required foreknowledge of the other players' actions. For example, a computer wizard might cast a 'disbelieve' spell immediately after a human player has conjured a powerful creature, or the computer might fire a 'Magic Bolt' at a player-summoned creature when no targets were in range beforehand.
Once all spells have been cast, surviving wizards take it in turns to move themselves and any creatures under their control (unless they are 'engaged'), and attack other wizards/creatures.
Combat Other creatures or wizards are attacked by either moving into them, or flying onto them. Moving or flying next to an enemy creature automatically 'engages' them, and allows for an immediate attack. If an attack is successful the enemy creature disappears/dies and the attacking creature moves onto its square. Flying onto a creature allows an attack, but the flying creature remains in place unless it succeeds in killing its target, in which case it takes its place as above. Only defending creatures can be killed, attacking creatures are safe until attacked themselves.
Success depends on the attacking creature's combat rating vs. the defending creature's defense rating. Some creatures have ranged combat, allowing them to attack other creatures from afar, so long as there is a clear line of sight. An undead creature can only be attacked other undead creatures (or magic weapon equipped wizards), but can attack both undead and non-undead creatures itself.
Any creature equipped with ranged weapons automatically has a chance to use them after movement and/or combat. They can fire at any creature in range (even allied ones, or their own wizard!) with no risk to themselves.
Once all wizards have taken it in turn to move and fight, the turn sequence starts over from the beginning. For human players, no actions are compulsory, they may simply skip any actions they do not want to take. Computer controlled wizards will ALWAYS move, unless in a Magic Wood / Castle / Citadel, even when it is not in their best interest to do so. Likewise all computer controlled creatures ALWAYS attempt to move each turn.
If a wizard is destroyed, all his creations immediately vanish also.
Quirks in the game A number of bugs and quirks exist, allowing for different strategies and "rule bending".
Illusion bug 1 Creating a weak illusionary creature (e.g. a cobra) and placing it on top of a deceased powerful creature (such as a dragon), then casting a Dark Power, Vengeance or Justice spell on that creature will change it into the dead creature and make it "real".
Illusion bug 2 If an illusionary creature gets trapped with in a gooey blob and is then freed it becomes real.
The movement bug Normally, if two enemy creatures are adjacent to each other they are "engaged" and cannot move away. This is dependent on the maneuver rating of the creature. This can be used as a useful strategy to prevent powerful "living" creatures from moving by placing weak "undead" creatures next to them. However, a bug exists where if the "I" (information) key is pressed you can attack a blank square. In most cases this will allow the creature to move.
- note from player : this bug can be also feature, it's meant to simulate 'fight' . both users usually played open-cards to reveal all possible terrain in cooperative search for portal
Killing another wizard on turn 1 Magic bolts and lightning are very effective against unarmed wizards. At the start of a game some wizards are close enough to be attacked and killed immediately by these weapons.
Undead wizards It is possible for a wizard to become undead in the game, and thus immune to certain attacks. To do so, ride an undead steed (created by casting Raise Dead on the corpse of a rideable creature) and then let the steed be killed. The wizard will now be flagged as undead.
Miscellaneous bugs - There is a small bug regarding upper case letters in player names. When the game first loads, upper and lower case letters behave as they should. Once a game has been played, however, on subsequent name entries, the keyboard behaves as if Caps Lock has been left on.
- After the penultimate wizard has been killed, leaving just the victor, it is still possible to move the winning wizard's creatures as normal. As such, it is possible for a ranged-attack creature, e.g. a dragon, to move in range of and "shoot" the wizard. If he should die then when his turn is ended, the game appears to enter an infinite loop. In fact, it is playing out the remaining turns (though since the board is empty, nothing can be seen). Eventually the final screen will appear, reading "The contest is drawn between" but not listing any names.
- If a wizard wins the game while in a Magic Wood, it is possible that the "New spell for X" message will appear while the "And the winner is" screen is displayed. This will cause temporary glitches in the end screen graphics for several seconds.
Trivia - The missing spells and also the instability of the game when casting the Turmoil spell are believed to be down to the game being unfinished at release. Rumour has it that Games Workshop were aware of this but made a marketing decision to push the game for release anyway.
- An unofficial Chaos "conversion" was released for the Atari ST. Written by Martin Brownlow, the game was released by hacking group D-Bug on Disk #173 and featured the previously missing spell "Teleport", as well as a new creature based on the alien from the Alien films. It also included 53 audio samples from numerous film and television sources, including Highlander, Blackadder and Red Dwarf.
- The very final issue of Your Sinclair (issue 93, September 1993) featured a Chaos play-off between various staff members and contributors: Rich Pelley, Steve Anderson, Craig Broadbent, Chris Buxton, Jonathan Nash (then editor), Jonathan Davies, Jeff Braine and Steph (an inflatable shark, filling in for an absent Stuart Campbell.) In the same issue, Chaos was listed at position 5 of the Your Sinclair Readers' Top 100 Games Of All Time.
- The September 2006 issue of GamesTM magazine listed Chaos at position 44 of the top 100 games of all time. This made it the second highest rated Spectrum game, behind Manic Miner.
The Atari 520ST Atari 1040STF with SC1224 color monitor The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially popular from 1985 to the early 1990s. ...
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Your Sinclair magazine logo Your Sinclair Issue 1, January 1986 Your Sinclair or YS as it was affectionately known, was a British computer magazine for the Sinclair range of computers, specifically the ZX Spectrum. ...
Notable events of 1993 in computer and video games. ...
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Manic Miner is a classic platform game originally written for the ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith and released by Bug-Byte in 1983 (later re-released by Software Projects). ...
See also Lords of Chaos (video game) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...
Total Chaos is a series of simple turn based strategy game / card game / board games where the player(s) take the role of wizards who battle with one another to rule the world. ...
The original Amiga 1000 (1985) with various peripherals The Amiga is a family of home/personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation as an advanced home entertainment and productivity machine. ...
References - Your Sinclair, issue 93, September 1993
External links World of Spectrum is a website devoted to cataloging and archiving material for the ZX Spectrum home computer pupular in the 1980s. ...
Original game - Chaos (Spectrum Emulator) — Java based Spectrum Emulator running the Original Chaos Game.
- Flash Chaos — Browser based version of the original game made in flash.
Remakes - Chaos Wars — A Chaos remake with a larger board and D&D-based mechanics, for Microsoft Windows.
- Chaos Funk — a faithful remake.
- Chaos Groove – previously Chaos Bass, a work in progress from the same author, for Microsoft Windows.
- Realtime Chaos – A realtime multi-player network version of Chaos.
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