Having had moderate success with Battlecars and Rebelstar Raiders in 1985, Julian Gollop subsequently unleashed what many consider his masterpiece, at least on the ZX Spectrum computer. Don’t let those unassuming graphics fool you – Chaos (sometimes known as Chaos: The Battle Of Wizards) is a game of unprecedented depth that remains a firm favourite for fans and remakes almost 40 years later.
Drawing on its coder’s experience of board games, presents a blank black screen populated by between two and eight wizards battling to the death for victory. Each wizard has a selection of spells allocated at the beginning of the game. A menu appears at the start of each round, and this presents four options: Examine Spells, Select Spell, Examinethe wizards themselves – Magic Armour, Swords, Bolts and so on – and enchanted castles for the caster to hole up in should things get a little too hot. In addition to these, each wizard can summon creatures to the Plane to help them defeat their opponents, and this is the core of ’ gameplay.
