React! Games announced yesterday that they will be delivering Archon to the iPhone in the second quarter of 2009. Yes… that Archon.
React! Games managed to wrangle a license deal with Free Fall Games who created the original Archon game in 1983. It was a huge hit at the time and found itself ported to the Commodore 64, Apple II, Macintosh, IBM PC and many more platforms.
The gameplay of Archon resembles Chess, but with a few notable differences:
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.
Chad Lee, founder of React! Games, says of the iPhone version, “We’re very excited for this platform, it’s ease of development and user base. Initial tests confirm that the touchscreen and accelerometer will be a fun and interesting experience for everyone.”
Other features confirmed for the iPhone version include:
- Multi-player Wi-fi
- Worldwide leaderboard
- 3 AI Settings
- an additional surprise game mode for 1 player only
Only the following promotional shot was provided at this early stage. Stay tuned. Ongoing information about the game should be available at ArchonClassic.com.
For those unfamiliar, a video of the Commodore 64 version is available here.
