How to play Swordfight online
Swordfight has no computer opponent, so you need a second player. Both players can share one keyboard. Every move is set by the direction you push the joystick:
- Player 1: arrow keys, fire = Space
- Player 2: T/F/G/H (up/left/down/right), fire = A
- Left swing / overhead swing / right swing: push up-left, up or up-right
- Left block / overhead block / right block: push left, down or right
- Draw your sword, then advance and retreat: fire button
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
The manual notes that the difficulty switches have no effect.
Gameplay
After you press Reset, each player draws a sword with the fire button, and the fight starts once both blades are out. Each knight stands on four energy platforms. Every three hits you take, one platform disappears. After 12 hits a knight fades away and the other player wins. Press Reset for a rematch.
With three attacks and three matching blocks, the rules fit on one page, but a fight turns into a guessing game. You have to read which swing your opponent is winding up and pick the right block in time, while using the fire button to step in for an attack or back out of reach.
Tips
- Mix up your swings. If you always attack from the same side, your opponent only has to hold one block.
- Use distance. Retreating after an attack gives you time to see what your opponent does next.
- Count the platforms. They show how many hits each player has left, so you know when to play safe and when to push.
The story behind Swordfight
Stephen Tatsumi was one of the Blue Sky Rangers, Mattel Electronics’ in-house programmers, and he also designed and programmed Kool-Aid Man for the 2600. According to the manual of the 2000 release, he made Swordfight because another Atari sword-fighting game had characters too small to give any feel of combat. He wanted large fighters and a joystick you could handle like a sword. To get the big figures, he drew parts of them with the background graphics instead of the usual sprites, which is why they look slightly blocky.
Tatsumi fine-tuned the controls in long test bouts with Ron Surratt, who managed the Atari 2600 group, and the game won fans among the other programmers. Mattel still shelved it. It needed two players at a time when the company wanted one-player games, it was not based on a film or arcade hit, and there was no Intellivision version. Sea Battle, finished around the same time, met a similar fate. In 2000 Intellivision Productions released Swordfight under its Retrotopia label with a box and manual, using the unmodified 1983 game file.
Similar games to play next
- Star Wars: Jedi Arena – another two-player duel with glowing swords
- Sea Battle – another finished M Network game that Mattel shelved
- Kool-Aid Man – Stephen Tatsumi’s released 2600 game
- Boxing – Activision’s head-to-head fight seen from above