Ataxia II

Ataxia II is a turn-based strategy game in which wizards summon monsters to battle each other. It is based on the classic ZX Spectrum game, Chaos, by Julian Gollop.

Requirements: Ataxia II runs on Windows in a 1024 x 800 window, and requires some form of graphics card.

Ataxia II is programmed by Duncan Timiney in Blitz3D. Whilst playable, development is ongoing, but close to v1.0. Progress can be tracked at the Doodleblog Wiki, and user comments can be made there.

Download:

Ataxia II v91014 (4.0 Mb, self-extracting executable)

How can you help?

• Playtest! Tell me what didn't work, or what you want to see changed or added.
• Design some graphics! My sprites are fairly rudimentary; I'm sure someone can do better. They are all 32x32 .png files, with RGB 0,0,0 as the mask and RBG 255,255,255 is swapped in-game with the wizard's colour. Creature sprites are automatically given a dark outline.
• Ataxia is free, but if you enjoyed the game or wish to see it developed further, donations are a great incentive!
  

Features

• As of v.081212, all the spells from Chaos are included (except Gorilla, oops.)
• Like Chaos, casting spells changes the alignment of the world. In Ataxia, alignment saturates the world with a localized effect as well as global.
• Wizards specialize in particular spell types.
• Lots of new creatures, lots of new attack spells!
• Game camera can zoom in, out and track around.
• Procedurally generated music. (Currently in back in the workshop)
  

How to Play

• Quick control overview
• Mouse cursor: Select spells and movement/ranged/spell targets.
• Right Mouse Button: Skips past stages; if you don't want to move a character or cast a spell, for example.
• Keypad: Optionally used for movement, and for selecting adjacent squares when summoning a creature.
• Cursor keys: Camera track
• Delete / Page Down: Rotate game board
• Mousewheel or Home / End: Zoom in / out
• Options: During play, there are several buttons along the left-hand side of the screen.
  
• Music on / off (hotkey = "M")
  
• Overhead camera (hotkey = "O")

• Let's Go!: Select "The Battle of Wizards". Select the number of wizards (1 to 9), then select how many human players will be participating. Selecting 0 players is possible, in which case you can sit back and watch the computer wizards battle each other.

• Each wizard's position is randomized, and human players are invited to input their names. 
  
• A wizard's appearance and specialized spell groups is chosen automatically (using the wizard's name as the seed)
  

• Play commences with the Spell Selection phase, Spell Casting phase and then Movement phase.
  

• In the Spell Selection Phase, your spellbook appears. Left click to select a spell, right click to skip this stage.
  

  

• Hover the mouse over a spell to read more information about it and to see the spell's range on the game board.
• Each spell icon has a bar showing the spell's casting chance. Chaotic spells have a red border, lawful spells are cyan.

  

• If a spell has no targets in range, its icon is reduced in size and you can't select it.
• Illusion is a meta-spell. After selecting it, you are presented with the available spells it may be combined with. An illusionary creature always has a 100% cast chance, but is subject to the Disbelieve spell.

• In the Spell Casting Phase, each wizard takes their turn to cast their chosen spell. Depending on the cast chance, a spell may fail, in which case play passes on to the next wizard. If the spells succeeds, it is either cast immediately or the player is prompted to select the spell's target. The mouse is used to click on the appropriate target, or in the case of summoning spells, the keypad can be used to designate an adjacent square. Use the right mouse button to skip this phase.

• In the Movement Phase, the player moves his wizard and all their summoned creatures. Each creature moves one at a time. Use the right mouse button to skip a creature's movement.

  • Most creatures move one square at a time. Flying creatures may move to any square within their range.
  • To move, use the mouse to click a green movement mark or the keypad to move to an adjacent square.
  • Attacking: Moving into an enemy triggers a melee attack. Available melee targets are shown with a red ring.
  • Mounting: A wizard may mount creatures such as the horse, or constructions such as magic castle or magic wood, by moving into them. Available mounts are shown with a green ring.
  • Shooting: A creature may have ranged attacks. If they have not made a melee attack, and there are enemies in range, you will be prompted to select an enemy to shoot at.

Law and Chaos

• Spells may be neutral (grey border), chaotic (red border) or lawful (cyan border). Casting chaos or law spells will saturate the game board with that alignment. A wizard standing in an area of high alignment will have a bonus chance to cast similarly aligned spells. Thus to cast a powerful spell, one may first cast several weaker spells of the same alignment to boost the chance of it working.

• Aligned creatures slightly saturate the grid with their alignment at a strength based on their level.

Stats

• Level: Overall power of the creature. To the right of this is the XP bar.
  
• Move: How many squares a creature can move.
• Attack and Defense: Most attacks use these stats to determine a hit.
  
• Dam and End: Damage and Endurance. If an attack hits, these are compared to determine the severity of the wound.
  
• Dodge: Used to defend against Bolt, Burst, and Blast attack spells; the melee attacks of creatures that can bypass armour, such as phantoms, spectres, wraiths and banshees; and the ranged attacks of dragons, magicians, and light elf sorceress.
• Body: Used to defend against Ball, Wave and Storm attack spells and the chilling touch of a ghost's melee attack.
• Mind: Used to defend against Strike and Aura attack spells, and the ranged attack of a banshee.
  

Combat, Getting Hurt and Getting Away

• If the enemy is hit, they may suffer a minor wound, a major wound, or be killed.
  
• Incorporeal: Phantoms, spectres, wraiths, ghosts and banshees are incorporeal; attacks partially pass through them, reducing their chance of being hurt.
• Regenerating: Vampires, wraiths and trolls have a chance of regenerating, removing a major wound. The troll may even regenerate after being killed.
• Creatures and spells can cause typed damage. This may be poison, ice, fire, lightning, psychic, vile or divine. Some creatures may be resistant or vulnerable to different damage types.
• Flanking: If a creature (not owned by the enemy's wizard) is in the square opposite the attacking creature, a flanking attack will occur.
  

After a melee attack, the two combatants are engaged in combat and cannot move. Instead of attacking, a creature may attempt to withdraw (with the 'W' key).

• Flying or incorporeal creatures (including wizards in shadow form) have a better chance of withdrawing.
  
• Skirmishers (examples: goblins, hobgoblins, manticores, bats, eagles, dire wolves, centaurs, bandits, nightmares, draugar, rocs and unicorns) have a better chance of withdrawing.
  
• Mêlée experts reduce their opponents chance of withdrawing (examples: skeleton, phantom, hobgoblin, crocodile, red dragon, light elf, dwarf, soldier, captain, fire giant, ghoul and hadhayosh)

Winning

Killing an enemy wizard causes all their creatures to disappear. To win the game, your wizard must be the last man standing.

License and Disclaimers

Ataxia II is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License (see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) - that is, I welcome you to alter the game and distribute as you wish as long as you credit me, and release the modified version under the same license. Credits go to:

• ERH and Ludvique of freesoundproject.org, as I modified some of their sound samples
• Psychotic Carp's @ Pixeljoint, for some pixel art.

I program as a hobby, during what little spare time I get. I look forward to your criticisms on the wiki.