| Archon: The Light and the Dark | |
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Box art |
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| Developer(s) | Free Fall Associates |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts Ariolasoft (Europe) |
| Designer(s) | Jon Freeman, Anne Westfall, Paul Reiche III |
| Platform(s) | Atari 8-bit, Apple II, Commodore 64, Amiga, MS-DOS, Macintosh, NES, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, PC-88 |
| Release date(s) | 1983 |
| Genre(s) | Strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player or two player |
| Media/distribution | floppy disk, cartridge, cassette |
Archon: The Light and the Dark is a video game developed by Free Fall Associates and distributed by Electronic Arts. It was originally developed for Atari 8-bit computers in 1983, but was later ported to several other systems of the day, including the Apple II, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, IBM PC, Apple Macintosh, PC-88, and NES. It was designed by Paul Reiche III and Jon Freeman and programmed by Anne Westfall. Reiche also produced the artwork for the game.
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On the surface, Archon appears similar to chess, but there are a number of significant changes. While the board is similar to a chessboard, and the various pieces are similarly designed to have various offsetting abilities, when one piece attempts to take another, the removal of the targeted piece is not automatic. Instead, the two pieces are placed into a full-screen 'combat arena' and must battle (action-style, with the players running the pieces) to determine who takes the square.
Generally (but not always) in combat, a stronger piece will defeat a weaker piece in either defending or capturing a square. It is also possible for the fight to result in a double-kill, in which both pieces are eliminated. This uncertainty adds a level of complexity into the game, since it is not always possible to predict if taking a square will be successful. Different pieces have different abilities in the combat phase. These include movement, lifespan, and weapon damage and attributes. The weapons vary by range, speed, rate-of-fire, and power. For example, the pawn (represented by knights on the 'light' side and goblins on the 'dark' side) attacks quickly, but has very little strength; its weapon, a sword or club, has limited reach and power. A dragon is considerably stronger and can attack from a distance, while a golem moves slowly and fires a slow but powerful boulder.
Some pieces have special abilities. The Phoenix can turn into a ball of fire, both damaging the enemy and shielding itself from enemy attacks. The shapeshifter assumes the shape and abilities of whatever piece it is up against. MikroBitti magazine once noted that the Phoenix and the shapeshifter facing each other usually end up as the most boring battle in the entire game - as both combatants' capabilities are simultaneously offensive and defensive, they tend to use it whenever they meet each other, and thus both rarely get damaged. Each side also has a spellcaster piece (the Sorceress for the dark side, the Wizard for the light side) that can cast seven different spells; each spell may be used only once per game by each spellcaster.
The game is usually won when either one side destroys all the opposing pieces or one of the sides is able to occupy all of the five power points. More rarely, a side may also win by imprisoning its opponent's last remaining piece. If each side has but a single piece, and the two pieces destroy each other in a double-kill, then the game ends in a tie.
Science-fiction author Orson Scott Card reviewed Archon for COMPUTE! Magazine in November 1983. Card gave Archon (as well as two other EA games, M.U.L.E. and Worms?) a complimentary review, writing: "They are original; they do what they set out to do very, very well; they allow the player to take part in the creativity; they do things that only computers can do."[1] Archon Ultra was reviewed in 1994 in Dragon, receiving only 1 out of 5 stars.[2]
Free Fall Associates developed a sequel to the game called Archon II: Adept in 1984 (it appeared on different systems on different dates). Not very similar to the original, it had improved graphics, different creatures, and required different strategy to win. The players in this version represented either Order or Chaos and possessed 4 adepts that could cast powerful spells. The game also featured an end-game option called the "Apocalypse spell," where one player or the other could call for a final battle to determine the outcome of the game. The Amiga version featured full stereo sound, unusual for games of the day.
Strategic Simulations, Inc. developed a DOS game in 1994 called Archon Ultra. Being an expanded remake of the original game, it not only had updated graphics and sound, but it also had additional features: most notably the units had secondary weapons and the battle sequences were shown from an “isometric” point of view, enabling the game to simulate a third dimension in the battles, which made it more difficult to aim. It also featured a multiplayer mode via modem.[3] However, it performed very poorly in the marketplace. The Unholy War is a PlayStation game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos Interactive in 1998. It was designed by Paul Reiche III and featured a similar style of strategy and combat as Archon.
An unofficial sequel, Archon III: Exciter, was produced by unknown Archon fans for the Commodore 64 in 1985.
The game was rewritten for Palm OS in 2000 and was close to the original. The creator, Carsten Magerkurth, of EmperoR Studios, contacted the members of former Free Fall Associates and, with their input, developed a new version in 2003 (v1.21) with colors and sounds even closer to the original.
Another rewrite of the game, Archon: Evolution, was developed by Curve Software. The game reached public beta status before disappearing from the Internet, but resurfaced in January 2008. The game used code from the original 8-bit version with the blessing of Jon Freeman.[4]
In 2008, React Games acquired the license from Free Fall to develop the Archon title across multiple platforms. It released an iPhone version in June 2009.[5] React! Games was founded by Chad Lee, who had worked on the non-commercial version of the game, Archon Evolution.[6] A follow-up title called Archon: Conquest from React Games was released in September 2009 for the iPhone. It is a single-player game set in the Archon universe that features four campaigns, each with 15 quests. Archon: Classic for Windows was released in May 2010 by React Games. It features new gameplay elements not in the original game, such as four player support, four AI settings, various new boards to choose from, pieces that level up, power-ups in combat and more.
Paul Reiche and Fred Ford went on to create the Star Control series of video games. The combat component of the first Star Control game is very similar in that each player has a group of spaceships with different abilities which they send into one-on-one combat. Paul and Fred went on to found Toys for Bob, and create many other games together.