The game’s popularity is evident when you look at how many times it has been remade by fans.
Each unit type had different skills and movement stats and each combination of them meant that no two games were ever alike. You and up to seven other wizards (controllable by human or AI players as you see fit) were randomly allocated spell cards that give your wizard equipment and powers as well as allowing you to summon creatures that act as your army. It combined simple, effective visuals with easy-to-understand rules to create a turn-based strategy game that was all too easy to get into but could maintain a fanbase throughout the 8, 16, 32 and however many bits we’re up to right now generations. So when Julian Gollop wanted to make a game based on an experimental board game he’d once created, all he needed was a ZX Spectrum.Ĭhaos, subtitled The Battle of Wizards, is an English classic.
#Chaos reborn spells full
But if you could manage it, you could single-handedly put out a credible game, infused with your own personality and full of ideas unfettered by your publisher. Each genre was still finding its feet as developers wrestled with the hardware available. Nope, back then any idea had a good chance of being realised as a proper retail game and the UK gaming scene was a giant bucket of hidden gems, cult classics, and unforgettable hits. And not in that new, hipster indie way where any old developer can decide to make a game about, say, a depressed cat that is, for example, allergic to floors, and call it (checks iPod for a random songtitle) ‘ Ordinary People Do Fucked Up Things‘ and then fire it off into the internet on the off chance that Jim Sterling decides it’s better than pies. Where the rest of the world was dominated by home conversions of Atari and Activision games, gaming in the ’80s in Britain was a wild frontier where any idea, no matter how simple or bizarre, could form the basis for a game. One of the great things about growing up in the UK is the uniqueness of our retro gaming scene. With a brand new reboot, Chaos Reborn, announced, we caught up with the game’s creator, Julian Gollop, to talk about both versions.
Almost thirty years after it was first released, Chaos: The Battle of Wizards continues to entertain and enchant one of the most loyal fanbases in retro gaming.