Ataxia is a fantasy strategy game based on the 1985 ZX Spectrum game Chaos.

It used to be called Chaos Wars, but has undergone a name change due to an upcoming comercial game of the same name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Wars

(See also other pieces of tosh at gamedesign.)
(Also, Other Chaos remakes)

http://www.marasmusine.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Ataxia1.82.zip from 12/7/07, 3.5 Mb
Requirements: A Windows-based PC with DirectX 8.1 or better, and some semblance of a graphics card.

Change log; also add your comments here.

Starting from v1.3, the image and sound files are included in a separate folder.
Feel free to have a go at improving or completely changing the graphics!
Ataxia: Chaos Wars is based on the classic ZX Spectrum game Chaos.

A few changes from the original:

• All wizards now select their spell before casting takes place, rather than sequential select/cast. Monsters move in initiative order rather than in order of owner.
• In addition to attack and defence, we have damage / hit-points.
• Law/Chaos also has a localised effect as well as global.

Firstly, select a scenario:

1. Chaos; 2 to 9 wizards fight each other, similar to the original game.
2. High Chaos; As above but with high level spellcasters.
3. Light vs. Dark; No spellcasters - just goblinoids vs. elves and dwarves.

and options:

• Six Card Battle; Wizards start with 6 spells - the first always being disbelieve. Before each turn, each wizard draws a card if they have less than six spells.
• Allow creatures to Mount; Allows humanoids and goblinoids to mount Mounts. Normally only the players wizard or general can mount.
• Grassy backdrop; gives a green tint to the playing field.
• Order of play; change between Initiative or Original (in the latter, units move in order of Player, like in the original Chaos, regardless of initiative)

Secondly, select how many humans will be playing. Selecting 0 will initiate a 'demo mode'.

A character level and playing field will be randomly determined.
Then players input their character's names, and a random magical item will be assigned.

Each turn there are two phases; the Spell Selection phase and the Action phase.
In all cases, the right mouse button will abort the current action and move on to the next phase.

Illusions are cast with 100% success, but may be swiftly removed by the enemy with the Disbelieve spell.
Summon Creature is the standard summoning.
Summon Group creates three creatures at a lowered casting chance.

Each spell has a casting range.
Some are personal, such as Magic Wings or Magic Sword.
These are cast automatically.
Otherwise you place the spell with the spell cursor.
If the 'S' in the cursor is small, you are out of range; move until the 'S' is larger.
Creature summons must be adjacent to the caster.

Each creature and wizard on the board now moves and attacks in order of initiative. Creatures on foot moveone square at a time. Flying creatures can move to any square in their movement range. The cursor will turn blue when it is on a valid square.
Move into an enemy to attack. Flying creatures can attack from a distance if they have enough movement points to return to their current position, otherwise they must fly a little closer first.

Pressing SPACE will delay that creature's movement until after everyone else has moved, which you may wish to do in order to keep a group of creatures in formation, or for strategy reasons.
Movement will end automatically when the creature is out of movement points, it attacks, or if you abort with the right mouse button.
Creatures with ranged attacks may now fire if they have not engaged in close combat. The cursor will turn blue if it is in firing range. Again, right click to abort.

Creatures have four main statistics, as shown if you hover the cursor over it.

• Hit Points (heart symbol). Do I really need to explain?
• Dexterity (purple eye symbol). Determines a creatures initiative, ranged attack hit chance, chance of scoring an additional melee attack, and ability to avoid some ranged attacks such as dragons breath.
• Attack (sword symbol). A combination of strength and finesse and basically the chance of hitting in close combat.
• Armour (shield symbol). A combination of the creatures natural toughness and worn armour.

Some statistics not shown, but evident during the game, are movement points, damage, and other effects:

• Venom: Snakes and Wyverns can cause prolonging damage to living creatures.
• Poison: Spiders and Tarantulas can reduce a victims attack/damage rating over a prolonged period.
• Damage resistance: Some creatures take less damage than others.
  • Constructs such as trees, castles and walls have good damage resistance.
  • Zombies and Treants are only weak against slashing weapons.
  • Trolls are resistant to all damage apart from fire and acid.
  • Vampires and gargoyles resist all non-magical attacks.
• Elemental resistance:
  • Dragons are immune to fire (gold and red), acid (green) or electricity (blue).
  • Muspeli are immune to fire.
• Plants: Gooey Blob, Trees, Treants and Shambers are immune to electricity, poison mind-effecting spells but take double damage from fire attacks.
• Mounts: Pegesai, manticores, horses, griffons, unicorns and centaurs can be mounted by the wizard; the wizard merely needs to move into the mount's space.
• Incorporeal: Wraiths and Spectres are incorporeal and can only be struck by other incorporeal creatures or magic (half the time.) When they strike living creatures they drain their energy to bolster their own hit points. However they are rendered powerless in sunlight and will eventually be destroyed by it.
  
• Natural Spellcasters: These creatures have some spell-like ability that they can always cast.
  • Fauns can cast Panic, which may cause an enemy to move away.
  • Harpies may cast Captivating Song, which may lure an enemy closer.
  • Basilisks have a petrifying gaze.
• Spellcasters: Some creatures, like wizards, have access to spells which may only be cast once.
  • Quetzalcoatl can cast Aid, Subversion and Scorching Rays
• Regeneration: Trolls, Hydras, Fires and Blobs regenerate some hit points each turn.
• Multiple Attacks: Hyrdas and Ettins always get an extra attack.
• Aquatic: Shamblers, Cobras, Hyrdas, Crocodiles, Giant Rat and some dragons can be summoned on water tiles and get their full movement in water.
• Dwarves hate goblins, orcs and bugbears so get a small attack bonus against them. They are also adept at dodging the blows of giants and ogres.
• Unicorn's attack is magical, so hurt vampires and possibly hurt spectres and wraiths.
• Orcs are not keen on sunlight.
• Pixies arrows may daze an enemy.

• Magic Wood creates trees which may be entered by any wizard. They will provide a new spell after a number of turns.
• Shadow Wood creates trees which will automatically attack adjacent enemies.
• Gooey Blob and Magic Fire can spread to engulf creatures if left unchecked. They can be placed almost anywhere on the board.
• Magic Castle and Dark Citadel can be entered by the wizard for protection., but can be defeated by darkness or sunlight respectively.
• Wall places four blocks of brickwork that prevents movement and ranged fire.
• Animate Tree transforms a Shadow Forest or Magic Wood into a Treant.
• Black Library is a building which any wizard can enter to try and gain new spells. It may also stun the wizard (with forbidden knowledge), and will vanish after a random period of time.

• Daze is a simple spell which may stun an enemy for one turn.
• Negative Energy drains a living creature (or will empower an undead)
• Magic Missile creates force bolts; the higher the caster level, the more bolts. They never miss.
• Lightning Bolt is short range but hurts all in it's path.
• Searing Flames are short range but have an area effect.
• Scorching Rays creates several ranged fire strikes.
• Acid Orb is a low-powered ranged attack spell.
• Acid Dart is a long range spell, but doesn't guarantee a hit. Acid damage hurts every round, lasting longer with higher level wizards. It may be washed off in water.
• Break Armour removes the armour contribution to Defence on an enemy.
• Subversion has a chance of bringing an enemy creature to your side, with weaker creatures being easily captured.
• Decree is a ranged attack that particularly hurts chaotic creatures.
• Vengeance is a ranged attack that particularly hurts lawful creatures.
• Slow halves a creatures's movement and effects their attack and defense.
• Confuse causes a creature to move and attack randomly.
• Petrify will turn most creatures into stone.
• Unpetrify will reverse the effects of petrification on a friendly creature; or turn a stone-like creature (like a gargoyle) to flesh.
• Venom Touch is a short range spell that may envenom an enemy.
• Meteors is the most powerful attack spell in Ataxia. It summons four meteors which explode when they reach their target.

Personal spells only ever effect the wizard him/herself.

• Magic bow, Magic sword, Flame Blade and Magic dagger provide an appropriate magical weapon.
• Magic wings provide versatile movement.
• Transformation spells physically alter the wizard for a few turns. This gives some physical advantage but while transformed cannot cast spells.
  • Bat Form: As flying creatures cannot be held engaged in combat, this is a useful spell to escape combat with.
  • Combat Form gives the caster better combat ability.
• Shadow Form makes the wizard semi-incorporeal, improving defence considerably.
• Teleport can whizz wizards out of danger, or into it.
• Fire Shield protects the wizard from fire attacks, and can hurt creatures who attack him in melee combat.
• Magic Shield provides extra defense, particularly against attacks which are normally automatic hits (Magic Fire and Magic Bolt)
• Magic Armour provides extra protection, indefinitely.

Where spell effects have a limited duration (such as the two shield spells), the number of turns remaining can be see to the right of the effect name in the creatures infobox.
Empowering spells effect the wizards nearby creatures.

• Aid gives a small boost (hit points and attack) to a single creature.
• Toughen, Strength and Agility are spells that improve the wizard or his creatures; At higher casting levels, multiple creatures are improved.
• Justice provides your nearby creatures with a defensive boost. Anyone hitting a Justice creature may be slowed.
• Dark Power is similar to Justice, but chaotic. Anyone hitting a Dark Power creature may be confused.

Weather spells globally effect the whole board in some fashion:

• Darkness adversly effects ranged attacks and may destroy Lawful constructs (e.g. Magic Castle).
• Sunlight renders some undead powerless and may destroy Chaotic construct (e.g. Dark Citadel).
• Windstorm, depending on the casters level, may knock down creatures, batter flying creatures, damage constructs and foul ranged attack attempts.

• Flood creates water tiles. Water is difficult terrain for non-aquatic and non-flying creatures.
• Move Earth creates hill tiles. Hills are difficult terrain for non-flying creatures, but provide an attack bonus and extra range for ranged attacks.
• Consecrate creates an area which weakens undead.
• Desecreate creates an area that empowers undead.

• Raise Dead is cast on any corpse, creating a zombie.
• Law I, Law II, Chaos I, Chaos II are effective ways of saturating the board with the alignment of your choice, and can stun nearby creatures of the opposite alignment.
  

Other than weather spells, Spells of Power are the only spells that can effect the whole board. They are always rare spells.

• Turmoil is the ultimate form of Chaos, sending every creature to a random location.
• Requiem transforms every corpse into lawful aura, thus denying any from being risen to undeath.
• Truth dispells every illusion on the board.
• Shadow Realm randomizes every creature's illusion status.

* "Acquisition" - A new spell for Chaos could be 'Acquisition', where you cast this spell on another wizard to acquire their Armour, Sword or Knife etc.
* "Rebound" - A new spell called 'Rebound' would give the target creature/Wizard the ability to send any attackers arrows/fire breath automatically back at them.
* "Dead Reckoning" - If successfully cast, this spell would do a powerful magic attack on all undead creatures on the board and potentially destroy them.
* "Truth" - On casting the 'Truth Spell' all illusions on the board are disbelieved at once.
>May make this a Lawful spell of Power. An inverse spell also? One that converts all monsters into illusions? 'Shadow realm' or something.
This is now in.
* "Protection" - If successfully cast on a Creature/Wizard the 'Protection Spell' will put a Magic Aura around the target Creature/Wizard that will make them indestructible for that turn.
Also a magic attack will not work on them.
>'Magic Shield' also needs to go in. Armour bonus + deflects Magic Bolt. Now in
Between Rock Skin, Magic Armour, Magic Shield and Shadow Form, a wizard has plenty of defense spells at his disposal. However, I still need to implement some anti-magic and resistance spells.
* "Random" - On successfully casting the Random Spell, the selected Wizards Spell List is randomly regenerated.
>Or 'Spell of Wonder'; perhaps a Chaos spell of Power; random spell plus some other goofy stuff.
* "Gecko" - This reptilian creature has a good movement range, is mountable by the casting Wizard.
Walls would be no obstacle to them as they are able to climb over them.
>Might work; 'climbing' creatures; to occupy the same space as the wall, it would effectively become its 'occupant' and also claim ownership.
* "Grounding" - This Spell would remove the flying ability from the target Wizard/Creature.
>This may become 'Hurricane', a weather spell which will effect all flying and shooting.
* "Scarecrows" - This spell allows you to manually place approximately 8 Scarecrows near your wizard.
No two scarecrows can be adjacent, and line of sight is needed in placing.
Scarecrows can attack anything in contact with them (except undead).
This would be a variation on the Shadow Wood spell.
I'm thinking of a range of Golem spells, one of which will be Straw Golem.

"Heroes - Might over Magic"
Another suggestion is that a player could choose to be a hero character instead of a wizard. This hero can cast no spells but has three lives.
The challenge here is to see if the hero can defeat the spellcasters and their creatures. It would be good to see if they had a chance !

That sound pretty feasable. I can use the Light and Dark generals from the Light Vs. Dark mode, perhaps give them a small retinue.==Possible new creature flags

• Climbing; as above under 'Gecko' - Side-effect would be that it would claim ownership of walls it occupies.
• Grappling; Once engaged in combat with a grappling creature you cannot move away. (Although that is the case at the moment for all creatures anyway)

"Slimeball"
This attack spell could be cast on a creature like the lightning or fireball spells. If the spell is successful the creature is stuck in a non-spreading gooey blob.
I think I'll put this in, but to continue the Julian Gollop theme, I'll call it Tangle Vine.

"Unsummon or Boomerang"
This spell removes a creature from the board and places in back into the owning wizards spell list.
This could be cast on friendly or hostile creatures.

"Meditation"
If a Wizard does not cast a spell or move for one turn, there could be a 5% chance of the Wizard gaining another spell while the they rest.

"Imp or Pixie"
The Imp would be a little weak creature that would have the ability to teleport any creature that attacked it to a random space on the board.

"Blizzard"
Once cast, the Blizzard Spell envelopes the game board for one turn, reducing all creatures movement to one.
A falling snow effect could be used on the whole screen while this spell is in effect.

"Arcane Theft"
The next spell target Wizard casts fails and is added to your spellbook instead.

• Each wizard selects an enemy wizard to concentrate their attacks on.
• Spells are selected randomly, apart from if they are being threatened by a powerful creature in which case they try to Disbelieve it.
  1. After spell selection, the AI will test the viability by checking possible targets in three passes. For example, if Dire is selected, it will first look for nearby friendly bears and lions, then wolves, and finally bats.
  2. If the spell can't target anything interesting, the AI will go back and select a different spell.
• Each creature has a personal focus; an enemy creature to move towards and attack.
  1. This will usually be either the enemy wizard or one of his creatures, but occasionally just any enemy on the board.
  2. If the creature has just been attacked, it's focus will switch to that assailant.
  3. If the wizard has just been attacked, his creatures will focus on the threatening unit.
  4. Creatures will try not to focus on things they can't hurt, can't catch up with, or that can't move and are empty (like trees or blobs)
• If a creature has decided not to focus on anything, it will guard it's owner.
• Mounts will wait for their master to mount them.
• Wraiths and spectures caught in sunlight will attempt to move to Desecrated areas.
• Wizard targeting is slightly different:
  1. A wizard will avoid combat until he is almost out of summoning spells.
  2. Will attempt to move towards Magic Woods
  3. Will move onto an adjacent Mount or castle/fortress (although he sometimes jumps out. Not sure why.)
  4. Will move away from adjacent engulfers like Fire or Blob.
  5. Will attack any enemy that happens to be adjacent.
• During the actual movement phase, the AI will move a 'virtual cursor' towards that creatures focus, moving step-by-step for foot creatures, or as far as it can go for flying creatures. If a flying creature is close enough for a fly-by attack, it needs enough MP to return to it's position, so will move a step forwards until it can do that.