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Comment by jansan | Hacker News Reader

Anyone remember Archon and ArchonII for the Commodore 64? It was a game that looked like chess, but the figures had to fight a real duel in an arena. The Pawns had just a club, there where dragons that could spit fire, etc. Much closer to an action game than to real chess. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun paying it. https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Archon

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Yes! I had Archon II as a kid and loved it. I remember that playing against the AI was a very different game than playing against another person, as the AI could do things during the fights with perfect aim and split-second reflexes that made it very overpowered with certain units that another human had a hard time using well. But it's strategy wasn't as good, so I could outplay it on the board enough to get a win, especially after I figured out which units I could use effectively against the AI.

That’s what the article reminded me of and Archon was one of my absolute favorite games on Commodore 64. Complete masterpiece!

You might also love Dark Legions [0] by Silicon Knights/SSI, based on the same concept as Archon; turn-based strategy with real-time battles. Had a lot of fun on it in hot-seat multiplayer.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNherpNAhnw

Played Archon to death with my coder friends on the Atari. The games became so intense that friendships were sometimes be tested. The instant response from killing a unicorn was a sudden punch to the thigh. Sometimes this could even done with a goblin for greatest upset.

Yep, I loved playing archon (and later battle chess) with my best friend Phil on his Commodore 64!

Yeah, remember playing that on the Amiga; definitely added something more to the game than battle chess, which was just, well chess with animations.

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