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ChipWar
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About the game
ChipWar is a small turn-based war game played on a grid of territories, each holding between one and five troops, shown as the face of a die. You are white, the computer is black, and the opening map is shared out between you at random. Whoever ends up holding every territory wins.
On your turn you can send any territory with more than one troop against an enemy neighbour. Both sides roll one eight-sided die per troop and compare the totals. If you win, the territory is yours and all but one of your attackers move in; if you lose, your attackers are cut down to one and the defender loses a single troop. Attack as many times as you like, then end your turn: every territory has an even chance of gaining a troop, and the computer takes its own turn.
Playing it here
ChipWar is a CHIP-8 program. CHIP-8 is a simple virtual machine from 1977, created for hobby computers like the COSMAC VIP, and people still write new games for it. This one targets plain CHIP-8. It runs here in the Octo emulator, with the speed and colours chosen for it in the archive.
Click Play and the first map appears. F2 saves the state of the emulator at any moment and F4 brings it back. A gamepad works too: the D-pad moves the cursor, the A button selects and attacks, and the B button ends your turn or cancels.
Controls
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| W A S D or arrow keys | move the cursor; with a territory selected, choose the direction to attack |
| E or Space | select one of your territories; confirm the attack |
| Q | end your turn; with a territory selected, cancel |
| Any key (game over) | play again |
| F2 / F4 | save / load the state |
A few things worth knowing
Ties go to black. When the totals are equal, the computer wins, whether it is attacking or defending. Attack with more troops than the defender whenever you can.
The map wraps around. Territories on the left edge border those on the right, and the top row borders the bottom one, so there are no safe corners.
Do not empty your front line. A territory that attacks keeps only one troop behind, win or lose. Spread your attacks so that you are not left with a row of single troops for the computer to pick off.
Credits and licence
ChipWar was created by John Earnest, who also wrote Octo, the CHIP-8 development tool and emulator used to run it here (MIT licence). It is loosely based on the rules of the dice-battle game Dice Wars. He placed it in the public domain under CC0 1.0 through the Chip8 Community Archive. The licence text is linked from this page.