Archon (Computer Game)

The game is very similar to Chess, but with a number of significant changes.

While the pieces on the board have similar relative abilities to the different pieces in Chess, when one piece attempts to take another, the removal of the targetted piece is not automatic. Instead, the two pieces are placed into a full-screen 'combat arena' and must battle to determine who takes the square.

Different pieces have different abilities in the combat phase, and it's far more difficult for a 'pawn' to defeat a higher level piece. This adds a level of complexity into the game, since you cannot always predict if taking a square will be successful; but the stronger the attacking piece, the greater the chance of success.

The game is 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' on the board.

There is currently developing a new implementation (http://www.archonevolution.com/) of the classic Archon game for modern Windows PCs in development.

External Links

• Screenshots from the Commodore 64 version of the game (http://screenmania.retrogames.com/c64/03/c64_0052).