Hello and welcome to another installment of the Tumbleweed blog.

We’re taking a break from the team member introductions this week, as I’ve been unsuccessful in procuring a picture of Tor Jonas, the next one up. I’m hesitant to talk about our office situation, as “we’ve got hobos in our office” is not something I would like the public to know, but other than that things are fine. Instead of talking about us I’d like to go off on a little tangent and talk about something completely different; a game.

I’d like to talk a little bit about a brilliant gem of a game. This game was recently introduced to me by a colleague and it is VERY addictive. It’s mechanics are well thought out, although there are a LOT of them, it’s characters are mostly hilarious and it is nearly impossible to put it down once you get into it. I am of course talking about Stick Man Games’ Chaos Overlords from 1996. Like some of you readers, I had never heard of it before, and I was a bit skeptical at first. After a few tries where I sat next to my friend, sipping from his vast pool of Chaos Overlords knowledge, I found a deep and very rewarding strategy game.

Chaos Overlords is a top down, turn-based, strategy game played on a grid, where each grid on the map represents an area with three buildings. To gain control of buildings and areas you have to use your units, which are called gangs. Controlling tiles and the buildings on them will get you cash, as will generating chaos with your gangs. Different buildings can help you strategically other than just generating revenue, some help heal your wounded and some help research better equipment for your gangs. Winning the game comes down to what game mode you’re playing, some are based on how much money you make, others are based on conquest or elimination of other gangs.

What makes this game different from other turn-based strategy games, is it’s way of recruiting gangs. At the beginning of your turn you are presented with three gangs you can recruit right off the bat, but you are limited to recruiting one per turn. If you are unable to recruit any of the gangs this turn, you can get rid of one of them. Every time you recruit or get rid of a gang, a random gang appears in that slot the next turn. It’s like drawing gangs from a deck of cards.

What I personally think is the most fun about Chaos Overlords is recruiting, and planning ahead. When recruiting a gang, you have to look carefully at it’s stats and decide whether it’s best suited for generating chaos, fighting, influencing buildings, researching or just spying on the enemy. Even the type of combat a gang excels in is important.

The fact that you can only recruit one gang per turn and that they are chosen at random, makes the game very dynamic, and your strategy has to adapt to the gangs you draw. This is where the game shines, the randomization of gangs makes every game unique, and you can never do the exact same strategy twice. The game has you re-evaluating your options every turn, which makes the game very addictive, since you always want to know what gang the next turn will bring.

PS.

After a short research session I found that the creators of this wonderful game, Stick Man Games, cite various board games and Magic: the Gathering as their main inspiration. No wonder they created a good strategy game, when their main inspiration is one of the best games of all time!