Back a generation
Rolling back a generation. Somebody dust off the tube TV.
Beat or break the game
Pulverize your enemies for underestimating this cute little wizard. Counter their attacks, deflect their projectiles back at them, unleash face-melting ultimates and build insane combos that boost your power, until you are strong enough to beat the boss or break the game. Either way you win.
Trailer
Watch it fall apart
You keep playing while the game falls apart around you. The last moment is the only part you get to just watch.
The game
Outplay the pressure. Or die.
Survivor games nailed the build. Pick well and you end up seriously strong. Pick even better and the build breaks the game, and at that point you can put the controller down and let it kill everything for you.
Master of Chaos wants the action back. The smart choices still matter, but now you need the skill to survive long enough to make them. Counter what swings at you. Deflect what they shoot straight back at them. Kill fast enough to keep your combo up, because the combo is what makes you stronger. Combat takes skill, builds take smart choices, and you have to be good at both.
Do both well enough and the game breaks. That is the goal.
The point of it all
Break the game
An overpowered build is usually a balance problem. Here it is the win condition.
Push far enough and the engine starts defending itself. It turns the graphics down to cope, then down again, and keeps going while you keep playing. Switch on Retro Break to watch it fall all the way back.
3D is new here
Back to when 3D just got invented. It shows.
Peak cartridge
The fanciest a cartridge ever looked. Almost 3D.
Flattened
Everything is flat now. Just move.
Left. Right. Jump.
Down to a plank. Left, right, jump. Good luck.
Three ways down
Pick how you break it
Exactly one break condition is active per run. You choose it going in.
Horde Break
Hold the horde down long enough and the game steps down. Let it overrun you and it kills you.
Spreadsheet Break
Six targets: kills, counters, combo, spawns, time, upgrades. Any three of them.
Game Engine Break
No targets. Build until the frame rate itself gives out.
The pool
Every item in the game
333 upgrades across 16 systems, and still counting. This table is pulled live from the build's own data, so it grows when the game does.
Loading items…
Thirteen of these roll their rarity when they drop and scale up to double. For the other 320 the numbers here are exactly what you get. A few items still show an empty icon frame: those are the ones without art in the build yet.
Get involved
Play it now, or hear about it first
The demo is free and out on Steam. The mailing list is for everything that happens between now and release.
Play the demo
Free on Steam, out now. Counters, deflects, the combo meter and a run long enough to start breaking things. It is the fastest way to find out whether this is for you.
Install the demo on SteamMailing list
Development notes, new mechanics, and the occasional clip of a build doing something it clearly should not. No schedule, no filler, and no mail that exists only to remind you I exist.
Wishlist on Steam
Wishlists are the whole ballgame for a solo release. It costs you one click and it decides whether Steam shows the game to anyone else.
Wishlist Master of Chaos
Who made this
One person, under the name Chaos
Master of Chaos is made by one person, working under the name Chaos at Perfect Execution. Design, code, systems, balance and the arguments about all four: same desk.
It started from a small annoyance. In most action games the best moment is the one where a build finally comes together and the game briefly stops resisting, and in most action games that moment gets patched out. It is treated as a mistake. I wanted to build the game where it is the destination instead, where the systems are laid out so that the ridiculous combination is reachable if you go looking for it.
Everything else grew out of defending that idea. Counters and deflects exist so that power has to be earned in the moment and not just bought. Upgrades reference each other so that finding a synergy feels like finding something rather than being handed it. And the break exists because if a run is genuinely allowed to go too far, the game should be honest about it and come apart instead of quietly capping you.
Being solo shows up in the schedule more than in the scope. Features land when they are actually finished, playtest feedback usually turns into a build the same week, and nothing ships because a roadmap said so.
The best build in the game is the one that was never supposed to exist. Go find it.