Chaos 2x

[ledow]

Ledow has just done a quick port of Quirky's Chaos:

Quirky ported a disassembled version of the original Spectrum version to GBA and now I've tweaked that to work on a GP2X.

You can download it from the Archive or my website: http://www.ledow.org.uk/gp2x/

It's only a very simple and quick port and is probably as buggy as hell. Anyone who wants to take over the port is welcome - I've got the code still.

Ledow

 

[ledow]

There's also a later DS version but I didn't look into how easy it was to compile - it seems to use less SDL and more DS-specific routines.

This was a quick-and-dirty port of the GBA code where I just ran it through a compiler and on the third attempt got it to compile a complete "static" executable with SDL. Ironically, I had to use the "Windows" code included in the source, instead of the ARM-specific GBA code, and then had to compile it to run on Linux. Fortunately the "Windows" development environment was SDL and MinGW, which needed no porting to run on Linux. I had to change some paths, add lots of compiler options, download a small utility (which converts the graphics to GBA palettes) and comment out one line from a header file, and then it compiled statically.

That version ran on the GP2X, but obviously wouldn't let you control it. I threw in a function to emulate keyboard presses with the GP2X joystick and added some SDL Joystick initialisation code and it became playable. I tweaked some of the "exit" code so that the game would exit cleanly and respawn the menu and it all worked and I was able to play through several games.

No doubt there will be some bugs because it's basically running a game intended for the GBA / Windows without any critical modifications on a Linux handheld... I have noticed that if you stop it with the quit key (Vol+), sometimes you lose sound in later games or they won't start up because they can't grab the sound device. It must be leaving them open, so I might have to find that and fix it. Restarting the GP2X makes everything work.

I've only tested it on F-100's but I can't see any reason it won't work on F-200's. The only quirk I know about F-200's is that the sound frequencies have to be certain numbers but this game happened to use one of those rates by default anyway. Obviously, you won't have touchscreen control on F-200 because I haven't written anything to do that.

If it doesn't work for you, shout. It's probably only a simple SDL-bug or something that needs tweaking. And, besides, it only took me half-an-hour to actually port it, so there's bound to be more wrong with it.

 

[Fishbong]

Um, can you tell us what kind of game this is?

 

[ledow]

Um, can you tell us what kind of game this is?

It's a turn-based wizard battle game - think NetHack meets Worms - probably of interest most to old Spectrum fans who played the original. Up to 8 players (usually 1 human and the rest computers) take it turns to cast spells (e.g. Dragons, Vampires and other creatures, Magic Wood, Magic Fire / Gooey Blob - which spread across the arena -, Magic Armour, magic attacks, etc.) and then take it in turns to move all their units and then another round of spells starts.

The idea is to wipe out everyone else. Casting of spells depends on many things including the current state of the universe. There are two forces - Law & Chaos - and the more Lawful spells that cast successfully, the more Lawful the universe gets and the easier it becomes to cast Law spells successfully (and harder to cast Chaotic spells).

It's a very good game but because it's quite a faithful remake of the 1980's original, it'd probably look/feel dated to anyone who's not playing for nostalgia value. The original, though, was great multiplayer and single-player fun and got a massive following - it was originally released by Games Workshop (prematurely, I might add) and Julian Gollop , the original author, went on to become one of our best games producers (the X-COM series, for instance).

 

[drachers]

Looks rubbish, but isn't. Even at the time I recall thinking the graphics were pants, but this is probably in my top ten favourite games ever.

Did they sort out the controls for this port? I remember Chaos having lots. (note: my gp2x is broken, so I can't actually test)

 

[ledow]

Looks rubbish, but isn't. Even at the time I recall thinking the graphics were pants, but this is probably in my top ten favourite games ever.

Did they sort out the controls for this port? I remember Chaos having lots. (note: my gp2x is broken, so I can't actually test)

The controls are very well suited to the GP2X/GBA - the menus are now real menus (rather than "press a letter to pick a spell"), the in game controls are replaced with real joystick/D-pad movements (instead of all the keys around S and S to cast a spell as the Spectrum version had), and L and R are used to get info on the various spells/units. It actually works suprisingly well as a control system, and I'm a die-hard Spectrum Chaos fan - I haven't yet had any trouble coping with the control system or any features missing. The game options are also revamped so that everything is menu-based instead of sitting and naming 8 characters manually, choosing whether they are computer-controlled etc. It's now all easily selectable for anything from 2 to 8 players.

I have noticed, however, that "engaged to enemy" is not as frequent as the original Spectrum versions. I don't know if that's a plus for playability or a minus for inaccuracy to the original - probably both. There are also a few bugfixes in this version (Turmoil spell works, for instance, and you can't do the raise-dead trick that turns your wizard undead).

 

[Klepto]

TYVM for this, Chaos is one of my all time fave games. This is the game that spawned Laser Squad (aka Moonbase Assault) that in turn spawned the X-Com series. If this is disassembled then I'm assuming it still contains the turmoil bug? There's a very nice freeware version for the Atari ST that runs well on the GP2X, but it's always nice to have access to the original.

Edit:

Turmoil spell works, for instance.

Thanks, you read my mind

 

[ledow]

TYVM for this, Chaos is one of my all time fave games. This is the game that spawned Laser Squad (aka Moonbase Assault) that in turn spawned the X-Com series. If this is disassembled then I'm assuming it still contains the turmoil bug? There's a very nice freeware version for the Atari ST that runs well on the GP2X, but it's always nice to have access to the original.

From the looks of it, Quirky actually disassembled the original game inside the WinZ80 emulator (he credits it in the README) and recreated all the important parts of the original code in C. There is a later version that he did but this one took literally minutes to port. The source code is also liberally commented with statements which tell you what part of Spectrum RAM that particular bit of source code is based on. However, in places, he of course substituted better code and fixed a couple of bugs. The menu system is *so* much nicer - if Julian Gollop had been able to do that (and finish the game), the game would have been damn near perfect.

If I remember rightly, Turmoil hardly ever worked on the Spectrum because Julian Gollop was forced to release the game early by Games Workshop. It wasn't that it was inherently buggy - it was never finished! There were also graphics for a "Troll" creature and several other spells inside the Spectrum version that were never implemented.

Personally, I stopped casting the Turmoil spell despite playing this game almost every day for years - the five minutes reload time when it got stuck in a loop was just too much to bear!

Did anyone else have unofficial "rules" when playing Chaos with other people? My brother and I would play one wizard each against 6 computer wizards but we weren't allowed to fight/subvert/raise dead each other's units until we had killed all the other wizards. And we made a rule that you can't kill ANY wizard without first having killed *all* his creatures (unless they were undead and you had no other way to kill an undead creature - so if you had a magic bolt or a subversion spell, you had to try them first before you were allowed to kill the wizard).

And we hardly ever hit the round limit and ended the game in a draw unless we were messing about when it was just us two left. We also found the bug where if you kill the last wizard while having a creature who could shoot (e.g. Dragon, Manticore etc.) and still had action points, it was possible to shoot your own wizard and kill him too. Then there was NOTHING left on the map at all and the end screen would loop "And the winner is...." about twenty times with no names on it before returning to the menu!

 

[drachers]

I seem to recall references in the speccy code to spells like "Dead Revenge" as well, but I was too incompetent aged eight (and now, for that matter) to do anything with it. Nice to see the Turmoil spell works though.

I also seem to recall an Amiga remake with neutral monster generators, a much bigger playing area, but the "illusion" mechanic completely removed. It was sort-of good...