If you were a gamer in 1985, you might remember a game called Chaos: Battle of Wizards, a turn-based tactics game for the ZX Spectrum. If your memory is a little foggy, or perhaps you weren’t alive yet back then, just know that Chaos was one of the earliest games by Julian Gollop, the creator of the XCOM series that was successfully rebooted by Firaxis in 2012. At any rate, Chaos: Battle of Wizards is getting its own reboot in the form of Chaos: Reborn, a Kickstarter-funded project being handled by Gollop himself, and today you can try out a prototype of the game on your web browser for free.
The prototype only supports multiplayer matches for 2-4 players, and runs on a limited time frame. Before you get to testing out your spellbook on other players however, playing on a browser requires the creation of a username and password, although you don’t need to provide an email or any other personal information. You will also need the Unity plugin.
Alternatively, if you want more video options, you can install the prototype on your computer by following the instructions on this guide.
The original 8-bit Chaos allowed for up to 8 wizards, human or computer controlled, to battle to the death using an array of randomly assigned spells. Players would take turns moving and attacking with their wizards and a plethora of summonable followers.
Chaos Reborn will bring the game to the 21st century, with modern visuals and gameplay, but as is the case with anything, it will cost quite a bit of money. The game’s Kickstarter goal is to reach $180,000 in order to cover costs for wages, studio rental and software licensing fees for a year. So far, with three days left to reach that goal, the game has achieved $155,482 from 3838 backers.
Although the prototype version only contains adversarial multiplayer, the final version of Chaos Reborn will also have co-op and single player modes. The game is currently projected to be released on May 2015.