| Archon: The Light and the Dark | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Free Fall Associates |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Designer(s) | Jon Freeman Paul Reiche III |
| Programmer(s) | Anne Westfall |
| Platform(s) | Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, IBM PC, Mac, NES, PC-88, ZX Spectrum |
| Release | 1983 |
| Genre(s) | Strategy, action |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Two-player |
Archon: The Light and the Dark is a 1983 video game developed by Free Fall Associates and one of the first five games published by Electronic Arts. It is superficially similar to chess, in that it takes place on a board with alternating black and white squares, but instead of fixed rules when landing on another player's piece, an arcade-style fight takes place to determine the victor, and each piece has different combat abilities. The health of the player's piece is enhanced when landing on a square of one's own color.
Archon was originally written for Atari 8-bit computers and then ported to the Apple II, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, IBM PC (as a self-booting disk), Mac, PC-88, and NES. It was designed by Paul Reiche III (who also created the graphics for the game) and Jon Freeman and programmed by Anne Westfall.
A sequel was released in 1984: Archon II: Adept.