November 8, 2025

As Chaoscraft begins formal engine development, we will continue to publish weekly updates on the Dev Log. In these posts, we’ll delve into a set of themes at the forefront of development. For those interested in this material, we present it with acknowledgment of its heavily textual nature. In my experience, it is not usual to see this much textual attention to detail given in the conceptual overview of a new game.

What we typically see instead is mostly visual marketing designed to grab your eye. Part of what makes this unsuitable for Chaoscraft is that this is a very, very nebulous, strange, multidimensional universe. While we will likely see only one world map in 1.0, there are many other worlds, some of which are timeless and some of which appear, disappear, and reappear over time. Naturally, with the game’s design having this many planned features, and with its world existing in this state of evolving flux, a Dev Log allows us to better illustrate this MMO and the futuristic vision behind it.

I imagine if you’ve read Dev Log I and you’ve chosen to read Dev Log II, you’re among a subset of players who feel so much interest in the game, its art and design, and its symbolism, you want to know more, and be part of its development in some form. Know, if you read this, we are an actual dev team, regardless of our lack of established presence on social media. While we do post on social media, what you see on this website is all you will find of Chaoscraft and Castle of Nightmares. This website is the game’s eternal home and where it will launch.

So if you are this interested, or even if you’re skeptical and wish to share your views, we welcome you to join the game’s development. Buying a pre-order of 1.0 and making a donation directly funds development. It’s what will allow us to hire devs, fund a studio, and host servers. We’ve begun tinkering with a small 1.0 design in an engine, but for the game to be fully realized as intended, it will ultimately take players like you choosing to support the game irrespective of its status as a standalone indie project.

With that said, I want to give closer focus to five parts of our design.

Time and Physique

Over the past thirty odd years, since the dawn of MMOs, there is one recurring motif that’s taken a prominent place in the genre’s history: Time.

MMOs traditionally feature a time-based design, wherein a player must invest long periods of time – even insanely long grinds – to reach their desired stage of endgame. One levels, quests, gears, and journeys across the lands in search of new experiences, friends, and enemies. This is the classic MMO design.

Now, so there isn’t ambiguity, I am a big lover of intense, meaningful grinds, especially ones that offer an opportunity to obtain something very rare or beautiful. I’ve spent long, long hours on some pursuits in classic MMOs, and continue to this day.

Yet, there is something to be said about being able to choose whether one partakes in such heavy time investments. In other words, if a modern game directly forces you to invest crazy amounts of time essentially to merely play the core game, this rubs me the wrong way, personally. It is clear this design does not have player autonomy in mind. It is meant to create a sort of artificial structure, for obvious reasons. To emphasize, this point of criticism is about modern MMOs specifically, not their classic precursors that were made in a much younger, simpler era.

There is a very fine balance we can strike between:

1. Being able to make any kind of character you wish and enter any kind of journey at leisure.
   
   and
   
   
2. Being able to choose freely to commit to any kind of endgame grind, investing infinite time.
   
   

By making any kind of character, we mean your ability to create and begin the journey of a character is not in any way limited by levels, gear grinds, intro quests, or other obstacles. This is a way of saying, you can simply create a fully customized character, choose a world, ladder, or odyssey, and play. You do not spawn as a bum in worthless equipment that can only be upgraded by playing for months or years. This was and is still today one of the most charming parts of classic MMOs – beginning as a smalltime adventurer, but the trope is now very overdone and used more-so as a tool than an original charm.

You are not forced to level for weeks on end if you don’t want to, there is no set of self-important personalities demanding your attention for some heroic task, and your journey is wholly your own, guided by your will.

What we find, then, is that, if one so desires, one doesn’t have to do anything at all. You can do literally anything – anything that is possible in the world of Chaoscraft. There is no linear campaign you must follow. There are no expectations placed on you, or social pressure to “catch up” to this patch.

As part of this philosophy, each patch does not release a new set of gear you must have to be on par with your peers. There is of course new gear, but as explained elsewhere on the site, gear plays a minimal role in Chaoscraft, at least in PvP. In PvM, select pieces may be desirable for their unique traits or powers, but they are not in any way a hard requirement. Emphasis remains strongly on skill, story, challenge, collections, and seasonal prestige, in addition to gear and wealth.

How, then, is progression measured?

I would say progression is in the eye of the beholder. It depends entirely on the type of person you are, what you’re interested in most, and what it is you want. If you want to head out in the open world and fight, that is one opportunity with its own appeals and unknowns. If you want to gamble, there’s plenty of that to go around. If you’re an explorer or crafter, Chaoscraft sees its fair share of these passions. If you’re a dedicated PvPer who wants to go for that Rank 1 title, go right ahead and try. If you’re a hardcore raider who wants to risk it all to slay the dragon – or whoever it is that’s spawning all these nightmares, you may certainly walk this path.

Do you see?

Your progress is not measured by a bar, numbers, or anything like that. Your character is itself your story. It is you. It is an expression of you. I do think it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I also think there will be plenty of cups of tea to go around. What is above all the singular most alluring quality of a game like this is that it cannot be easily defined, or reduced to any one flat nature. When you first play Chaoscraft, you will quickly find you have little idea of what is out there. Believe it or not, nor will I. I explain why this is under the Experimentalism page on our site.

Intertwined with the element of time is that of physique. Most of the customizations available to each character do not require any grind whatsoever to use. They are very, very extensive and very, very alterable. In addition to choosing height, weight, and other traits, we want to see characters be able to select from what we hope to be the most wide-ranging customizations in MMO history.

This plays on the question of time in that, what you choose your character to be is defined solely by your personal taste, rather than any demanded time commitment. Your appearance, your physique, your aesthetic – all of this comes from your heart, creating an identity that suits you and you alone.

What does take time – even years – are those extremely rare, prized, and beautiful pieces of art that linger in the far-off fog of MMOs – otherworldly trinkets sold by secret merchants, exotic illusions found only in hardcore, flying dragons who breathe fire like the rest. This is what can take time, a long, long time.

So if you like all you can be as you are the very first moment you summon your fingers to create the living artwork that is a character, enjoy. If you feel your eye drawn to something a little more exotic, well my friends, that’s what epic quests are all about, aren’t they? Whatever your path, know there is a big wide world out there waiting to be travelled, and stones waiting to be turned, on the chance one finds a gem beneath them.

Horror and Gore

Since I was young, I always felt a fascination with horror and the ghastly. Was this an acquired taste? Something instilled in me by my experiences and incidental intrigues? Or was it something deeper? A darkness that dwells in each of our souls, drawing us to the side of the universe that doesn’t look like us, or perhaps mirrors us in a way one might be tempted to ignore.

Horror is not something I would define as a genre. Nor is horror a mere feeling or experience.

Horror has many faces: a monstrous and sinister side of reality, a genre of art that focuses and expresses it, and also a feeling and experience. Horror is what I fell enchanted by because, from a young age, I saw it was not only a manifestation of psyche and culture. It is a force – a dark force existing in our universe itself.

We have given this force and its faces and dimensions many names, and will continue to as the eons pass in our obscure corner of spacetime. What we call it doesn’t seem to have as much impact on us as what we see of it, and beyond all else, what we feel.

One will notice, as one gazes upon horrors, and those beings and energies who defy them, a mystical coiling thread of story begins to wind and unwind in one’s soul, reminding you one’s ancestors felt the same horror under ancient moons long ago, gazing up at the stars and wondering why it is the mere sight is a little spooky. As you contemplate what you make of this game, and us, remember you too are an artist.

What story do you have to tell?

Which side of this force do you walk?

Do you step amusingly along a tightrope between them, like me? Or are you unsure what to make of it all?

Horror exists in the raw form it does in Chaoscraft precisely because Chaoscraft is a fantastical mirror of our universe, and this is the form it exists in it. You may not see it day to day in your life, but the horrors of the world are all around you. They’re in the buried rotten skeletons of the dead and forgotten. They’re in the crushed insects twitching at the wayside. They’re in the eyes of the snake gulping tonight’s unhatched egg.

Do you ever wonder why you can’t seem to tease them out of you? Make them go away forever? Why you’re reminded, involuntarily, of their inevitability? If there’s one thing I still wonder, it’s why they haunt the sleeping in their nightmares, taking shape none imagine and leaving cryptic imprints like metaphysical riddles. There comes a point, if you walk the strange gloomy road long enough, you begin to face your nightmares and ask them questions, see if you can get some answers.

Gore is an even more controversial topic. It’s kind of like gambling. Everyone’s got an opinion. Chaoscraft’s inclusion of lifelike gore isn’t some cheap shock value. Even the word ‘gore’ is itself a bit of a cheap descriptor. I have another word for it: Life.

Gore is not mere blood, or guts, or brains. We see a new era of horror and gore where the possibilities are endless. Spells, attacks, curses, diseases, monsters, accidents – all of it can wrought destinies as vivid and lasting as the events that precede them.

When a fireball melts a face from the bone, it melts it. When a sword slashes flesh, blood is spilt. When a nightmarish mutation afflicts a foe, its effects are visible and audible, echoing the nature of it.

This is lifelike gore. It is not just blood. It is beauty. It is horror. It is death. This is what a lifelike fantasy realm is, and why it is strictly optional to make the choice to step outside the limits of town into the wilderness. Once you make that choice, all the possibilities of real life come into play: You may encounter brigands and scoundrels. You may happenstance upon an ogre or other abominable marauder. You may even see a dragon. We do not play god, deciding it to be physically impossible to be assailed in some realms. This is absurd and always was, nothing more than artificial deus ex machina. In real fantasy, as in Middle-earth, brigands and their like in the wild may raise their swords. What are you going to do about it? That is the only question.

What this creates is a world divided between those who stray into the wilderness or other perilous domains and those who stay home. And believe it or not, I may myself stay home quite a bit. Just because I created this game doesn’t mean I will always be in the mood to deal with the ugly mugs of random psychos. It’s just that they do exist, and there is nothing in the laws of nature to stop them from running amok. Likewise, when fateful battles do transpire, as they do in any MMO, what is beheld is exactly what one expects: swords spill blood, bullets burn holes, spells singe and freeze and corrupt. This is life. This is gore.

Remember this, the next time you choose to leave town and head off into the wilderness. It’s no joke, out there, even if it’s full of jokesters.

Rank 1

Rank 1 is a feature very, very dear to our hearts. This is one feature of the game I must emphasize in the absolute strongest terms: Rank 1 in Chaoscraft means the actual Rank 1 of a ladder, whether a class ladder, division ladder, hardcore ladder, or other league. Rank 1 is not the top 0.1% or some such figure. It is the best of the best – the very best in the world.

With earning Rank 1 in a season comes extremely exclusive rewards. These are rewards only the Rank 1 receives, as they’ve earned the right to be called Rank 1 by sheer will and dedication. Along with Top 10 and Top 100 seasonal rewards and titles, we anticipate Rank 1 to be very sought after, come launch of Season I.

There is a very well-known reason for this: Players are both attracted to seeking Rank 1 and interested in the drama and story that unfolds around Rank 1s. It becomes a show of sorts, often broadcast live online. Rivalries unfold, with intense back and forth battles between the most skilled competitors on the planet. What is not to love about this? Especially when only one can be crowned at the end of the season?

This spirit has been lost over the years. Our dream is to see every class, every division, and every hardcore league have its own global ladder. We hope it to be an actual global ladder, something that should be possible with some tweaks. Even if certain regions aren’t able to play each other, we do not believe this limits us from defining Rank 1 as the player with the highest rating, just as in chess, the Rank 1 is the highest rated player. There may be various issues that develop along the way that have to be fine-tuned, but, ultimately, what awaits those who play competitive Chaoscraft is an opportunity to be titled the absolute Rank 1.

Who will prevail? Who will fall? And what will come of them next season, when they’ve gone back to the drawing board and resized their opposition? Will they brew up new strategies and ploys? Perhaps play dirty? Tune in next time to find out!

Dark Carnival

If it isn’t abundantly obvious already, it should come as no surprise a giant flaming clown head appears in the sky every month, hailing the arrival of the interdimensional Dark Carnival. Now, I’ll warn you. If you think you’re going to buy a ticket for five essence and waltz up to the top of the clown head just to take a bite of a corndog and watch the pigs race, you’re in for a rude surprise. The Dark Carnival is not – I repeat – is not a place for children or mere-corndog-munchers. The clowns who work up there are bonafide insane, and the spider who runs the show is even crazier. I strongly suggest if you plan a trip to the Carnival, you either make sure you’re totally sober or so drunk you have no idea what’s going on.

I’m not really sure what else to tell you about the Carnival. I don’t know what’s going on up there. I’m familiar with some of the games and rides but if you ask me about what’s found a little further back, it’s hard to say. You’ll just have to buy a ticket and see. And I don’t think they sell corndogs anyway.

If you’re curious, the grand prize of them all, for the grand price of 999 Dark Carnival Tokens (and a bunch of other weird stuff we won’t mention here) is none other than… Can you guess?

YOUR VERY OWN PERSONAL GIANT FLAME-SPEWING CLOWN HEAD AIRSHIP, OF COURSE! “Gasp!” you must say. “It couldn’t be! You can’t do such a thing!” Ah, but I can. You know why? It’s right there in the promo you see.

You see it, don’t you?

Chaoscraft Grand Finals

Every year, around the wondrous magical time of Halloween, the top-rated players convene for the annual Chaoscraft Grand Finals. This is the most prestigious competitive event in the game, calling gamers from around the world to grind their highest rank to qualify and outsmart their opposition before a live audience. There’ll be all sorts of tricks and treats and more than a few goody bags and minigames. We’ll have beautiful dancers and spooky music! We’ll decorate the whole place with more skulls and jack-o’-lanterns than you can count! And at the end of it all, when the dust settles, only one contender or team in each division will be crowned for the year.

What’s not to love? So buy a ticket now and mark your calendars! And by buy a ticket we mean buy a pre-order of 1.0 so the damn game can get made! You never know… If you believe in yourself, one day, you may hold the trophy of the most ruthless tournament ever, or at least get a bite of some skull-shaped candy.