Kid Chaos Amiga Magnetic Fields Shaun Southern 1994

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Kid Chaos

Magnetic Fields of the U.K. released Kid Chaos exclusively for the Amiga in 1994. Kid Chaos is a super-scrolling platform game influenced by Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog of 1991 on Genesis.

Kid Chaos was programmed by Shaun Southern and designed and drawn by Andrew Morris, both of Lotus fame. Kid Chaos music was composed by Pipe Smoker's Cough, and its sound was assembled by Peter Liggett.

Kid Chaos is a much better Sonic-like than Mr. Nutz of 1994 because Kid Chaos manages to replicate the speed and momentum of Sonic while not getting bogged down with non-core feature inclusions. 

Kid Chaos playfields are full-screen, clear and colorful and scroll smoothly in parallax and change direction rapidly. The sprites dim in dungeons, the music is filtered in dungeons and the soundscape is raw, clear and loud. In addition, the controls and collision detection are pretty much perfect.

If Kid Chaos was coded from the ground up for 14 MHz A1200s with 256-color AGA and 2 megs of chipRAM instead of for 7 MHz A500s with 32-color ECS and 1 meg of chipRAM, I can only imagine how good it could have been -- perhaps the Sonic-beater that it set out to be.

Kid Chaos consists of five time-limited stages each of which is made up of three scrolling platform sections and one fixed-screen Challenge section at end-level. In the scrolling sections Kid Chaos moves overground, underground, underwater and through the air while destroying objects, collecting power-ups and avoiding enemies and hazards en route to the end-section doorway. The Challenge sections draw from classic coinops such as Arkanoid and Space Invaders.

Kid Chaos Features

• 32-color 320x256 resolution (256 v-pixels)
• 320x256 scrolling active drawspace (platforming)
• 320x256 fixed-screen active drawspace (challenge)
• 5x scrolling platform stages (20x sections), 5x fixed-screen challenge stages
• 5x scrolling stages are 13,000 to 16,000 in length and ~1,000 pixels in height
• Pre-section briefing: Destruction, Time Limit and Damage Factor requirements
• Post-section debriefing: % of Completion, Destruction, Nasties, Apples, Extras & Time
• Power-ups: Extra Time, 1-up, Rocket Speed, Full Health
• More power-ups: Life token, Shield, Random, Crystal
• Collectables: Apple (restores health) & power-ups
• Joystick or joypad control
• Toggleable between sound & music
• Tailorable volume
• Toggleable between Fire to jump and Up to jump
• Toggleable between Fire to whizz and down to whizz
• Password System
• Built-in Cheat menu: choose stage & section
• Built-in Cheat menu: toggleable infinite lives, infinite time & door open
• Built-in Game menu: choose Challenge stage (1-5) 

Kid Chaos Stages

• The Secret Garden
• The Toxic Wasteland
• The Toy Factory
• The Techno Fortress
• The Ruined City

Kid Chaos requires an A500 with 1 meg of RAM and was distributed by Ocean on 3x 3.5" 880kB DD diskettes. It was not installable to hard disk drive.

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