Chaotic Trading Card Game
From: TC Digital Entertainment, Home Focus Development, Epic Cycle Interactive
Reviewed by: Ron McClung
Chaotic Trading Card Game is a new Trading Card Game from TC Digital Entertainment, Home Focus Development, and Epic Cycle Interactive.
Based on an animated TV series from 4Kids Entertainment, Chaotic on the outset seems like it is just another kids card game like Yu-Gi-Oh! or Pokemon. However, it is far more than its predecessors. It tries very hard to separate itself from products like it that came before and tries to be many more things than just a trading card game.
The basic premise of the game is players controling teams of fighting creatures, and their goal is to defeat all of their opponents’ creatures. You defeat them by fighting them in different locations (a la Mortal Kombat).In the game,cards represent Locations, Creatures, and Attacks. There are also Battlegear and Mugic cards. One of the biggest differences between this game and other TCGs is the online aspect. Every card has a code and the pre-generated decks have a code. This gives the player new ways to play the game.
From page #5: “Every Chaotic Card has a code and every Code represents an actual scan of a Creature, Location, Mugic, or Battlegear at a precise moment in Perim.”
A Chaotic TCGStarter deck contains: 52 cards – although only 48 cards would actually be used to play the game – with two nongame cards within the 52 cards as well as a rulebook and game mat. There are two starter decks for this game – Dawn of Perim: Overworld and Dawn of Perim: Underworld. These decks contain only one type of creature card with corresponding Mugic cards and location cards. The booster packs contain nine cards per booster pack, with two foil cards within the nine cards. Foil cards are special unique cards.
There are five card types
- Creature
Attack Location Battlegear Mugic
Creatures are the meat of the game. They are your soldiers in the game of Chaotic. These cards have four possible card background colors depending on what Tribe they’re in. These Tribes are Overworlders (Blue), UnderWorlders (Red), Danians (Brown), and Mipedians (Yellow). Creatures have Disciplines – Courage, Power, Wisdom, and Speed – and abilities that are either innate, activated, or triggered. They also have Energy, Elemental Attack Types, and Mugic Ability. The Elemental Attack Types work together with Attack cards and increase damage dealt. Energy, which can be modified by Battlegear and Mugic, is a measure of the life of a single creature.
Attack cards come from (obviously) the Attack Deck and they are used against your opponent and take up a bulk of your deck. The game requires that there be at least 20 attack cards in the player’s attack deck. Damage is dealt through an attack and are played during the Action step (see below). Every creature has a base damage and if the Elemental Attacks Type symbols match the symbols on the Attack card, more damage is dealt. Also, some Attack cards have extra effects. Battlegear can also add damage.
One very interesting and fairly fun aspect of attack cards is something called a Burst. This occurs when an ability or effect is initiated from an Attack card, Mugic card, or a Creature’s ability or a Battlegear ability. The attacker initiates a Burst by first reacting to his attack with a second card, and then the players alternate stacking cards in reaction to each other. Once both decide to stop adding cards to the Burst, the stack of cards is resolved from top to bottom. This could result in some interesting and unintended consequences.
Location cards are laid out in a deck by themselves (shuffled and face down) and are used to determine the locale of the each fight. Location cards are used to determine Initiative. A standard deck of locations contains 10 location cards. At the beginning of each turn, a player flips over the top card of their location deck to start the turn.
Battlegear cards are the cards a player uses to equip their creatures. Each creature can have one card of Battlegear. These are placed under each creature at the start of the game. Some are faced down while others may be required to be face up. Mugic cards are the spells creatures of Perim can cast. The player has a hand of spells, one per creature throughout the game. These are cast by spending a number of Mugic counters, which are kept track of throughout the game. Each creature has a number called Mugic Ability and points are kept track of through Mugic counters.
Set up is made easy for beginners with the game mat. Once you get used to the game, the game mat is not necessary. The players set up their army of creatures, the location deck and the attack deck. On the Mat, there are 10 creature positions forming a pyramid where the creatures can be placed and moved to. Starting Battlegears are also placed with the creatures. You can play with decks of different sizes – the rules say decks with 1, 2, 6 and 10 creatures are the most common. Larger decks are possible given that the players have enough attack and other supporting cards.
From page #5:“This Code gives you power to do things with Chaotic Cards that you can’t do with any other trading cards.”
Game play is performed in turns, where the current player is the Active player. A turn has the following steps:
- Location Step – In this step, a location is flipped from the location stack. This defines the location of that turn
- Action Step – This includes Movement and Combat. The Action step is divided into several phases
- Movement and Start of Combat – The active player must move at least one of his creatures during a turn. Usually that ends up moving one creature into an enemy space, which in turn initiates combat. A player is only allowed to initiate one combat per turn.
Initiative– The location dictates how initiative is determined. Striking – This is where the attack cards are played Additional Movement – This is where the player can take other additional movement that does not initiate combat. - End of Turn Step – This is the refresh stage.
Game play is a combination of a card game, a strategy board game and miniature game. The end goal of any turn is to attack and take out an opponents creature. Attacking is really where I think the game gets its name. The components of the game – Battlegears, Attack cards, Creatures and Mugic – all work together in different ways to create almost a different experience each turn. This can get confusing to some inexperienced players, but like most games, it just takes a little getting used to. The possibilities in combat are pretty vast, making it a diverse game. There is no time building up your forces and getting ready. Your army is laid out for you first thing, with weapons and spells at the ready. The game is specifically designed for fast play, giving the player as many options as possible to attack. This alone makes the game unique and attractive to players and is a differentiator from other TCGs and CCGs.
There are two version of the rules – Apprentice and Master. Master rules bring in Mugic and Battlegear plus a few extra rules. One of the few drawbacks to the game is that it is restricted to head-to-head play. The rules are not customizable for any other style of play. One of the challenges about this game is that you are not actually designing one deck, but 5 – Attack, Location, Battlegear, Mugic and Creatures. The upside to this is that you just about can not go wrong with your deck design because there are so many ways cards interact.
Visually, the game is spectacular. The art is high quality and so are the cards. Of course, the game is geared towards kids so the art is also kid-friendly. The names of the creatures are also kind of silly.
As mentioned, each card and starter deck has an online code, allowing you access to the Chaotic Online Experience. A player can log in and enter in the code of a card to add to his collection or enter the code of an entire starter deck. The web site allows for online play, collection maintenance, online trading as well as has communities and forums for players to join. Online Tournaments are organized on the site every month. The site is chock full of information about the card game and the cards themselves – everything that a Chaotic enthusiast would want. The graphics and interface of the site is top rate and is a great opportunity for players to see their cards “come alive.” Additionally, there is the ChaoticMobile Experience, where players can use their mobile phone to play the game.
I was unable to experiment with either of the electronic options thoroughly but I would imagine with the ability to electronically trade cards, a player’s online decks can gradually become completely different from the physical ones they own. The online experiences does, however, allow you to experience the game in different ways that you can not with your physical deck.
In conclusion, Chaotic is a lot of things. From a card game to a strategy game, a board game to a computer game, this game tries to appeal to many levels of gamers, at all ages. In fact, it may be trying to be too much for too many fans. It does have a significant backing from the company and a popular show to support it and drive the players to play the game. This game has a lot of potential for fun, despite its limitation of head-to-head play.
For more details on TC Digital Entertainment, Home Focus Development, Epic Cycle Interactive and their new Trading Card Game “Chaotic Trading Card Game” check them out at their website http://chaoticgame.com, and at all of your local game stores.
Chaotic Trading Card Game
From: TC Digital Entertainment, Home Focus Development, Epic Cycle Interactive
Type of Game: Trading Card Game
Game Design by: MRN, Arthur Murakami, Brian David-Marshall, Matt Wang, Don Lim, Billy Moreno, Drew Nolosco, Eric Smith, Joseph Cho, Jason Kennedy
Art Design by: Vincent Burkhead Studio, 4Kids Entertainment (Jason Navarez), Dracco (Elizabeth Rosas), Epic Cycle Interactive (Justin Yun)
Graphics Design by: 4Kids Entertainment (Jennifer Obrotka, Anthony Cangelosi, Chawen Chou, Kana Hashimoto)
Number of Pages: 43 page rule booklet
Game Components Included: Start Set, playing mat, rulebook
Game Components Not Included: Booster packs
Retail Price: Start Deck $ 14.99 (US). Booster Packs $3.99 (US)
Number of Players: 2
Website: chaoticgame.com
Reviewed by: Ron McClung