''International Karate +'', stylized as ''IK+'', is a

fighting game A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a video game genre, genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappli ...

written by

Archer Maclean Archer Maclean (28 January 1962 – 17 December 2022) was a British video game programmer. He was the author of ''Dropzone'' which he developed for the Atari 8-bit family and was ported to other systems. Maclean also developed the Commodore 64 ve ...

and published in 1987 by

System 3 System 3, System/3 or System III could refer to: Computing and electronics *Acorn System 3, a home computer produced by Acorn Computers from 1980 * Cromemco System Three, a home computer produced by Cromemco from 1978 *IBM System/3, a low-end busin ...

for the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

, Amstrad CPC, and

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

. It is a successor to ''

International Karate ''International Karate'' is a fighting game developed and published by System 3 for the ZX Spectrum in 1985 and ported to various home computers over the following years. In the United States it was published by Epyx in 1986 as ''World Karate ...

'' (1985). Activision published the Commodore 64 version in the US as ''Chop N' Drop''.

Gameplay

left, C64 screenshot Three

karateka (; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the ...

fight against each other on a beach, trying to be the first to score six points. After every two rounds, there is a bonus game which is either deflecting

bouncing ball The physics of a bouncing ball concerns the physical behaviour of bouncing balls, particularly its motion before, during, and after impact against the surface of another body. Several aspects of a bouncing ball's behaviour serve as an introd ...

s or kicking away bombs. The C64 version of the game only has the ball bouncing bonus game, and not the bomb bonus game. The game can be played by one or two human players; at least one fighter is always controlled by the computer. Unlike its predecessor, ''

'', there is only one backdrop. However, different parts of the backdrop can be recoloured to several different themes by the players using specific keystrokes. The Amiga, Atari and C64 versions of the game (and possibly other versions, unconfirmed) had a number of "background antics", a Pac-Man would appear, a spider would descend, and a U-boat's periscope would occasionally be seen in the harbour. In addition, pressing a certain key or keys would cause the trousers of all three protagonists to fall down, after which they would do a double-take. Additionally, it was possible (on the Amiga version, at least) to type in four-letter curse words; the game would respond first by rebuking the player for their use of such language, and upon the second offence would reset the game.

Development

did most of the work on developing the game, and the music was written by Rob Hubbard. Music for the Amiga version was arranged by Dave Lowe. In August 2005, the music from the game was performed at the third Symphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig, Germany. The packaging illustration for the Activision Commodore 64 release version of IK+, entitled "Chop 'N Drop", was created by Marc Ericksen.

Ports

16-bit versions of the game were released in 1988 for the

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

and

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

home computers. Apart from the music, which was arranged by Dave Lowe, the Atari ST version was created entirely by Archer Maclean.Toni Schwaiger: "Archer Maclean. Von Karate verstehe ich nicht viel." In: ST Magazin, No. 3, 1989. ISSN 0934-3237 (German
online full text
via stcarchiv.de, accessed 2020-10-04) The bitmap editor

NeoChrome NEOchrome is an early color bitmap graphics editor for the Atari ST. It was written by Dave Staugas, a programmer at Atari Corporation and co-author of the ST's operating system. ''NEOchrome'' supports hardware-supported color cycling to give the i ...

was used to draw background graphics and sprites and the code was written in

assembly language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...

on an IBM PC-based development system that cross-compiled the 800 KBytes of

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

in seven seconds and transferred the program to the RAM of the Atari ST via a parallel cable. Development took six months. The subsequent Amiga port took just seven days.

Reception

The game was voted Best 16-Bit Soundtrack of the Year at the 1988 Golden Joystick Awards.

Legacy

Another ''International Karate Deluxe'' game (AKA ''IK++'') was ready but unreleased for the Atari ST and Amiga in 1987/1988.In the chair with ... Archer Maclean. Retrogamer Magazine, issue 63 (2009). It was also released by Activision in 1988 for the Commodore 64 under the title ''Chop 'N Drop''. A version for Amiga CD32 was released in 1994. In 2003, Maclean's

Ignition Entertainment Ignition Entertainment Limited, doing business as UTV Ignition Games, was a video game publisher of Indian media conglomerate UTV Software Communications. After The Walt Disney Company acquired UTV Software Communications as a wholly owned subsi ...

released ''IK+'' for the Game Boy Advance and

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

in Europe, which remained faithful to the 16-bit iterations. The C64 version was re-released on the

Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Unix ...

in Europe on July 25, 2008.

References

External links

* * *
The Making of International Karate +.
' Edge Online, November 27, 2009. – Interview with Archer Maclean {{Authority control 1987 video games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games Atari ST games Amiga CD32 games Commodore 64 games Game Boy Advance games Golden Joystick Award winners Karate video games PlayStation (console) games Fighting games Video game sequels Video games scored by David Lowe Video games scored by Rob Hubbard Video games developed in the United Kingdom Virtual Console games ZX Spectrum games UTV Ignition Games games Multiplayer and single-player video games System 3 (company) games