Why Chaotic (and other games) Are Important

"Games are important. Games matter. When you play a game - any game - you’re using your imagination to bring a world to life, and that’s truly special, because while all destruction is essentially the same, when you create something, it’s different every single time. When you create something together, you’re building bonds with your fellow gamers that could last for your entire lives." -Wil Wheaton (click here for a link to his blog post)

I started this blog post off by stealing a quote from Wil Wheaton, a famous actor who starred in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Although he was talking about role-playing games, it still holds a lot of weight when you use it to talk about trading card games like Chaotic. When people not familiar with trading card games looks at Maxxor card, to them, it looks no different from a Chaor or even Bodal. But to us, we not only see the words printed in the card, but we also see how cards interact with one another in the giant exchange of ideas that we call the metagame.

Most people don't bother to understand trading card games, and often lump them together with a standard 52 card deck which already has that connection to gambling. And for that reason, most school ban cards from class without understanding what they really are.

Chaotic Inspires Creativity

When you build your own deck, or come up with your own combos, you are being creative. Einstein was a firm believer that creativity is more important than knowledge. It doesn't matter if you know every card, if you have no imagination, you will never be able to make your own deck, or even put your own twist on existing decks. Imagination is the ability to think or something that no one else has thought of before. Education focuses so much on learning that they forget that creativity and imagination are just as important for whatever you choose to do with your life after you finish school. Chaotic not only encourages this, but teaches it to you as well.

Chaotic Teaches Problem Solving

The game of Chaotic is a huge game of tactics. In the beginning of the game, you are given a very fixed amount of resources (Creatures, battlegear, mugic and a 20 build point attack deck). The winner of the game is the person who can best utilize their own resources while, at the same time, remove the resources of their opponent. In order to master the game, players need to looks at every situation and determine whether or not casting a mugic now will benefit them more than if they save it for later. Do you want to cast Song of Resurgence to save your Tangath Toborn, or do you want to save it so you can heal your Maxxor for a bigger fight in hopes that the mugic will give you the win.

Chaotic Helps You Become More Adaptive

One very important and trademark quality of trading card games is the adaption of random chance in game play. Things change. Often. If you have this great and amazing strategy that you think is unbeatable, but your opponent plays a move that you weren't expecting at all, if you want to still salvage a win out of the game, you need to be ready to make quick and tough decisions on the fly. If I've learned anything from playing chaotic, it's that players will often think of things that you aren't ready for. Even if you are surprised, it isn't the end of the game. You can think of a way to win. There is always a way to win if you look hard enough.

Chaotic Encourages Players to Interact with One Another

Do you know how many people became friends because of this game? How people, separated by hundreds of miles and sometimes sharing nothing other than this game have come together and become friends. Do you know how many facebook friends invites I have received? (Sorry, but I'm not accepting anyone else right now) The chaotic forums has so many posts each and every day of people talking in open discussion about this game. That is interaction. People are sharing ideas and improving on one another strategies. I suppose I could have also labeled this section 'Chaotic Encourages Teamwork'.

Final Thoughts

I have thought about writing a small piece like this (rough and unedited as it my be) about a game that does mean a good deal to me. People see games and disregards them without much though. In reality, they should see games and understand their value. There is a lot to say about the importance of games as a whole, and Chaotic is a very big part of that.