Review: Chaotic Shiny

Oh Chaotic Shiny. You are so wonderful. Not as dear to my heart as the Sanctum, which has been with me since my first foray into the web-based writing world, way back in '05, but still wonderful.

Now, I'm just going to dive right into the review of this site, solely because I am about to do something I never thought I would. Try not to be angry at me, as I go over my own scale to descrbie how great this site is.

Usefulness: 6 out of 5

If Seventh Sanctum is the pinnacle of usefulness, Chaotic Shiny is the stratoshpere. It's like, having nukes in Civ 5 when everyone else has warriors. It's ass-kicking and name-taking. Shiny contains many similar generators to the Sanctum, broken up into similar categories. However, Shiny succeeds in two places the Sanctum does not. One, Chaotic Shiny generates a LOT of words. The "CivGen", or civilization generator, generates 50 separate words describing different aspects of your newly created civilization, ranging from culture, to population, to economy. You can even put in constraints, like what time period the civilization thrived in (ancient to far future) and whether or not they possess magic. For those of us who are just winging it when NaNo comes along, Chaotic Shiny is the place to go for substantial plot details.(You know this site is good when it can generate a valid DnD 4e character, dice rolls and all)

Two, Chaotic Shiny tied itself intrinsically with National Novel Writing Month.  Not only does Shiny have a generator meant to motivate us, suggesting that "If you write 163 words in a row that questionably-dressed hottie you've been eyeing will turn out to prefer your gender, after all.", but they even have a NaNo calendar app for FREE on their product site. NaNoWriters, you have found your home. Not only does Shiny know that you can't be bothered to come up with your own complex ideas, but they know just how hard it is to write your simple ones too. Shiny has your back through it all.

Fun: 4 out of 5

Shiny doesn't tie with Sanctum here because of their lack of contests. Shiny has a similar amount of humor based generators. However, the Sanctum ups the ante by having hilarious art contest using their generators.

Something that must be mentioned, however, and a large part of the reason that Shiny gets a 4, is their RPG Drinking Game. Yes, Chaotic Shiny randomly generates a drinking game based on RPG tropes. Srsly. I don't even know how to begin explaining how awesome that is.

Hipster: 3 out of 5
 Shiny's not Sanctum. Sanctum's tie to Deviant Art will probably make it the least obscure overall  out of everything I review (save, maybe Holly Listle). Shiny is not entirely obscure. Shiny has a huge product site and a damn good following both of writers and gamers. Chaotic Shiny is the kind of website that, if it's not incredibly popular now, has so much potential to be incredibly popular in the near to immediate future.