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If you wanted to download the best fantasy strategy game
on the 16-bit platforms, then you've come to the right place.
Lords Of Chaos is the sequel to the all time
classic ZX Spectrum game "Chaos" programmed by Julian Gollop and
Nick Gollop and
published by Games Workshop.
Lords Of Chaos is a turn-based role playing strategy game for up to four
players. Each player controls a wizard which can move around the
wrap-around game world and cast magic spells, such as summon creatures and
make potions. After a certain amount of turns, a flashing portal appears
and the player's wizard has to exit the scenario through the portal with
the highest score based on killing enemy wizards, enemy creatures and the
amount of treasure carried.
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Although this tribute website began purely as a means to preserve the
fantastic Lords Of Chaos {also known as Escape From Zol in Europe} game on the Amiga for posterity, it has recently
been expanded to preserve the sister version of the same 16-bit code on the Atari
ST platform.
It should be noted that the scenarios in the 16-bit versions have very
different maps to the 8-bit versions. So in time, I would like to include all of the 8-bit Sinclair Spectrum,
Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC versions but as these are more freely available, due to
Julian Gollop very kindly putting them in the public domain much earlier
than the 16-bit versions,
there is no need to do that at the moment.
If anyone is having trouble finding these versions, or has the Escape From Zol demo version on the Amstrad CPC
system which was apparently never publicly released, please e-mail me.
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But first, a brief biography of the man behind one of
the most popular 8-bit and 16-bit strategy games ever programmed. |
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Julian Gollop started
creating computer games in 1982 while at school. He then attended the
London School of Economics to study sociology before realising the error
of his ways. Julian likes to dabble in many things of a creative nature,
including programming, art, music and cooking. He considers Richard
Stallman, Tim
Berners-Lee, Doug
Englebart and Linus Torvalds,
among others, to be the true heroes of the modern computer age. Julian
likes to relax by reading, playing the piano and being tormented by the
cat. He was married to Reni, a Bulgarian artist, in 2003, and lives in
Harlow, Essex. (link
to Julian's complete bio)
Julian's games have been released by
several publishers: Games Workshop, Redshift, Firebird, Target Games,
Blade Software, Mythos Games, Microprose and Namco with some of the
more notable being: Chaos (1984),
Rebelstar Raiders (1986), Laser Squad (1988), Lords Of Chaos (1990), UFO:
Enemy Unknown {also known as "X-Com: UFO Defense" in the USA}(1994), X-Com: Apocalypse (1997) and Magic & Mayhem {also
known as "Duel:
The Mage Wars" in the USA} (1998). At the present time, Julian is heavily
involved with Laser Squad Nemesis
(2002 to the present day).
In 2005, Julian created his first handheld game with the awesome Rebelstar
Tactical Command for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance. Buy it if you can
find it in the shops and please do not ask me for the rom to play on
the VBAlink emulator! Support Julian's current
projects as much as you can please because then he will create more
excellent games.
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To use the Commodore Amiga disk images (.ADF), you will require an Amiga emulator like WinUAE
and, for best results, the Kickstart 1.3 ROM.
Due to copyright issues, if I link to the Amiga Kickstart ROMs, this website
might get closed down and then lots of people would miss out on downloading
one of the best games for the Commodore Amiga platform. The problem here
is that Amiga, Inc
now own all of the intellectual property for the Commodore Amiga. The only
legal way to obtain the Kickstart ROMs is to purchase the Amiga
Forever suite from $29.95 upwards.
If you have trouble emulating Lords Of Chaos
with WinUAE, MAMEworld
have an excellent guide which you can check out here.
If you're using an older version of WinUAE, you'll need the
"ECS13" (Enhanced Chip Set for Workbench 1.3)
configuration, otherwise your wizard will have some yellow horizontal
lines in the tile square to his right.
The ECS13 configuration settings for WinUAE are:
Rom: Kickstart 1.3
Memory Settings: Chip = 2Mb, Fast = 8Mb, Slow = 1Mb
CPU: 68000
Chipset: ECS Agnus
CPU Emulation Speed: move the bar to the 4th line
Sound Emulation: Enabled, 100% Accurate
To use the Atari ST disk images (.ST), you will require an
Atari ST emulator like Steem and, for
best results, the TOS 1.02 (or 1.04 "Rainbow TOS") ROM.
Atari have no copyright issues with their TOS
ROMs and the Steem website has both the UK and US versions for free download.
If you have trouble setting up Steem, there's an
excellent beginner's guide on the Steem website which you can check out here. The
only thing to note when emulating Lords Of Chaos with Steem is that if the
memory size under Options (the spanner icon) is more than 512kb, you will
not get the loading screen shown below.
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Lords Of Chaos loading screens (the second blue
screen is only available on the Commodore Amiga)
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Lords Of Chaos demo disk: "Escape From Zol"
Click the Winzip icon to download the very rare Lords Of Chaos demo disk from
"Zero" Magazine, Issue 14 (August 1991) that contains the
special demonstration level "Escape From Zol".
Press "1" to
load this bonus level at the opening menu prompt.
Requires Winzip or PKUNZIP to open.
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Atari ST
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Lords Of Chaos Players Manual
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Click the PDF icon
 to download the
Lords Of Chaos Players Manual that came with the
original 8-bit and 16-bit games. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader
to open.
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Lords Of Chaos Changes From The 8-Bit Game
(An Amiga Lords Of Chaos Exclusive)
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Click the PDF icon
to download the
very rare Lords Of Chaos Changes From
The 8-Bit Game Sheet that only came with the
original 16-bit games. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader
to open.
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Lords Of Chaos main disk:
Click the Winzip icon to download the Lords Of Chaos main game disk that contains the
Wizard Designer and the first three levels
"The Many Coloured
Land", "Slayer's Dungeon" and "Ragaril's Domain".
Requires Winzip or PKUNZIP to open.
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Atari ST
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Lords Of Chaos: Expansion Kit One Information Sheet
(An Amiga Lords Of Chaos Exclusive)
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Click the PDF icon
to download the
very rare Lords Of Chaos: Expansion
Kit One Information Sheet that only came with the
original 16-bit expansion kit. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader
to open.
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Loading Expansion Kit One: Load the main program as usual and then put
the expansion kit in the disk drive. If the main program disk, or a saved
games and wizards disk, is in the disk drive then remove that disk and put
the expansion kit in the disk drive instead. Select the 'Load Scenario'
option and type 4 to load scenario four, or type 5 to load scenario five.
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Lords Of Chaos extra disk: "Expansion Kit One"
Click the Winzip icon to download the very rare Lords Of Chaos Expansion Kit One
that contains the extra two levels
"Islands Of Iris" and
"Tombs Of The Undead" for you to complete your epic adventure in
"Limbo".
Requires Winzip or PKUNZIP to open.
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Atari ST
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Please note that the above disk images have all
been dumped directly from the original Commodore Amiga and Atari ST disks
and each of these disk images are absolutely guaranteed to
work. Also, please remember that the Expansion Kit One disk is not
bootable like either the "Escape From Zol" demo disk or the Lords
Of Chaos main disk.
I want everybody to be able to play this great game and there will never
be any fake or cracked disk images for download here.
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Please also be aware that in Level 4 "Islands Of Iris", the treasure maps
in the Commodore Amiga version were graphically corrupted (shown below) which was a fault even when running
on
an actual Commodore Amiga.
Hopefully this glitch will not spoil your enjoyment
of this all time classic game on the Commodore Amiga.
Note that the Atari ST
version has no such problems with these maps (as also shown below).
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Commodore Amiga (graphical
corruption) |
Atari ST (look at how blue the
sea is!) |
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The
most likely reason for this graphical glitch could simply be that whereas
Julian Gollop and Nick Gollop programmed the Atari ST version, Krisalis programmed the
Commodore Amiga version. Proof of this is taken from the now defunct
Mythos Games website in a statement attributed to Julian Gollop from 1998:
‘Lords of Chaos’ was essentially a sequel to the earlier Chaos, but
it was a much more sophisticated game with strong role playing elements
and multiple scenarios. The wizard designer programme allowed you to
create your wizard character and improve both his spell knowledge and
characteristics. The game system offered a large variety of actions and
spells which made for an interesting playing experience. You could send
your creatures out to collect spell ingredients for potions in large
cauldrons, and vials could be filled with potions for use later on.
Creatures could fly, swim, use weapons, keys and other artefacts depending
on each creatures capability. The multiple scenario system was also used
in the same way as in Laser Squad, but some of the scenarios were for one
player only which required the player to embark on a quest with various
puzzles to solve as well as an enemy wizard to defeat. The RPG element of
the game allowed you to use your wizard character in each scenario and
then spend experience points earned from the conflict to increase spell
knowledge and characteristics.
The 8-bit version was followed by our
first 16-bit programming effort for the Atari ST. We re-wrote the whole
system and enhanced some of the game features. The scenarios were also
quite different from the earlier 8-bit version. The Amiga conversion
was done by Krisalis, which was essentially a straight port from the
Atari ST with some enhanced music. An expansion kit containing a further
two scenarios was made for both the 8-bit and 16-bit versions. The
programming effort involved in this game was immense because of the
multiple formats. We produced disk based versions for the 8-bit formats
because it made the game easier to play. The wizard designer was a
separate programme from the game itself and was a pain to use on tape
based systems. At the same time we had to learn 68000 assembler for the
Atari ST, and redesign all of the scenarios.
The above statement also
explains why the Amiga conversion of Lords Of Chaos done by Krisalis was
not made publicly available until after Krisalis went out of business in
2001. So if you want to be a Lords Of Chaos purist, the Atari ST version
is the one you ought to play because it contains the original unconverted
code from Julian Gollop and Nick Gollop.
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| For more comparisons between the different versions
of Lords Of Chaos, go to the Lemon Amiga website by clicking here. |
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| For reviews of Lords Of Chaos and also
Expansion Kit One, go to the Classic Gaming website by clicking here. |
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For detailed information about Lords Of Chaos
and also Expansion Kit One, go to the excellent Hall
Of Light (HOL) website by clicking:
here for Lords Of Chaos, here
for Lords Of Chaos Expansion Kit One or here
for Lords Of Chaos Demo Level (Escape From Zol). |
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And finally, the most common question I get asked:
Question:
Joseph, I remember in the 8-bit Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum
versions there was a famous infinite
carry bug. Does this bug still work in the 16-bit Commodore Amiga and
Atari ST versions?
Answer: Yes, it's still there, the
"infinite" carry bug will work for the 16-bit versions. All you
have to do is make your wizard carry enough weapons, items and treasure so
that he has at least one empty vial in his possession as his carry limit
reaches zero. Then stand your wizard on top of a full cauldron and then
fill the empty vial. His carry limit now becomes negative (due to an
inversion error) and you can carry any 16 items around regardless
of their weight (the 8-bit versions had just a 10 item limit). This
bug has the added advantage of allowing you to take much more treasure
through the portal than you would otherwise be able to, allowing your
wizard to obtain final scores of between 700 to 800 rather than the usual
300 to 400.
Thanks to http://www.worldofspectrum.org
for the Page 28 scan of Your Sinclair Magazine, Issue 82, October 1992.
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And as a special gift to everyone, here's a
Lords Of Chaos userbar I created for everyone to use in their internet
profiles!
HTML code = http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/4791/301156094308qe3.png
BB code [img]http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/4791/301156094308qe3.png[/img]
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For more information on Amiga
emulation, go to the Amiga
Emulation Talk forum and post!
(or leave some questions for me and my good friends waveydavey and Bill Edwards
who are really helpful.) |
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Lords Of Chaos
programmed by Julian Gollop and Nick Gollop © 1990/1991.
Developed by Mythos Games/Published by Blade Software ©
1990 (Sinclair Spectrum/Commodore 64)/1991 (Atari ST/Commodore Amiga). |
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This website coded by Joseph Q Numpty © 2003 through
2009.
Last updated with new content on Sunday 20th August 2006
Future updates will include:
How to edit the save disk to turn your wizard into a tank.
A bigger Hints And Tips strategy section for each of the 6 scenarios.
Archiving the 8-bit Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC versions for
completeness.
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