How to play Warlords online
Warlords was made for the Atari paddle controllers. The emulator above switches to paddle mode automatically for this game.
- Move your shield around your castle: left and right arrow keys
- Catch and release the fireball: hold and release the Space bar
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Choose one of the 23 game variations: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Switch between paddle and joystick mode: Alt + L
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
The difficulty switches are not used.
Gameplay
Four warlords sit inside four castles, one in each corner. Each castle is a coloured wall of bricks around the warlord, and a single shield moves along the outside of it as you turn the paddle. The fireball knocks bricks out of any wall it hits. Once it breaks through to a warlord, that warlord is out. Any castle not controlled by a human player is run by the computer. Computer shields move more slowly than yours, but they tend to send the ball off in unexpected directions.
A battle ends when three of the four warlords have been destroyed, and the survivor wins it. The first player, human or computer, to win five battles wins the war. Watch out for defeated warlords: their ghosts stay on the battlefield and can knock the ball off course.
Game variations
The 23 games differ in three ways:
- Number of players: one to four, plus Doubles games where each person controls two shields
- Shields: Catch shields can hold the ball; Ricochet shields only bounce it
- Ball speed: fast (lightning) or slow (fireball)
Games 21 to 23 are slower versions for children, with ricochet shields and the slow fireball only.
Tips
- Use the catch to aim. In Catch games, hold the button just before the ball reaches your shield, move to a better spot, then let go. The ball flies off at high speed.
- Target the weakest castle. Finishing off a warlord who has already lost most of his wall ends the battle faster than spreading damage around.
- Guard the corners of your wall. Shots that hit near the edges of your castle are the hardest to reach, so keep your shield between the ball and the bricks you still have.
- Beginners should start slow. A Ricochet game with the fireball is the best way to learn how the ball bounces.
History
Warlords is unusual because it started life as a 2600 project and was then turned into an arcade game, the reverse of how most Atari titles of the time came about. The arcade version was designed by Atari artist Roger Hector, who first called it “Kings in the Corner”, and it reached arcades in April 1981. Meninsky’s 2600 version followed in May. It combines ideas from two earlier Atari coin-ops, the four-player Quadrapong and Breakout. Warlords won the “Best ‘Pong’ Variant” category at the 1982 Arkie Awards. In 2009 Game Informer placed it 25th on its list of the best video games of all time. Remakes later appeared on Xbox Live Arcade in 2008 and PlayStation Network in 2012.
Similar games to play next
- Breakout – the brick-breaking paddle game that Warlords builds on
- Super Breakout – Breakout with more variations, including multiple balls
- Video Olympics – Atari’s collection of Pong-style paddle games
- Kaboom! – a fast Activision paddle game about catching bombs