''Swashbuckler'' 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 ...

created by Paul Stephenson for the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

and published by

Datamost Datamost was a computer book publisher and computer game company founded by David Gordon and based in Chatsworth, California. Datamost operated in the early 1980s producing games and other software mainly for the Apple II, Commodore 64 and Atari ...

in 1982. The player controls a sword-wielding

swashbuckler A swashbuckler is a genre of European adventure literature that focuses on a heroic protagonist stock character who is skilled in swordsmanship, acrobatics, guile and possesses chivalrous ideals. A "swashbuckler" protagonist is heroic, daring, ...

who must fight and dispatch various attackers. Combat occurs in a wooden-beamed ship's hold littered with skeletons and cobwebs, which the player views from the side. The game was translated into Bulgarian under the name "Авантюрист" (Adventurer).

Gameplay

The fighter's actions are controlled with the keyboard, and include moving left or right (A and D), turning (S) and swinging the sword high (I), low (M), or lunging straight (L). The first opponent is a large, lumbering man with a spiked club; once defeated, the second opponent appears, a smaller man armed with a hatchet and a dagger. After defeating him, both return and attack together. As play progresses, more opponents are added to the fray, including enormous rats and venomous snakes. Eventually the swashbuckler progresses out of the hold to the sunlit deck, though opponents continue to be a major threat. For each enemy dispatched, the game awards a point. The swashbuckler can withstand two hits, but the third kills him and ends the game. The difficulty steadily increases until he's overwhelmed. After 83 kills, the pattern of enemies keeps repeating and if the player manages to get 256 kills, the counter resets to zero.

Reception

Michael Cranford Michael Cranford (born June 5, 1963) is a video game designer and programmer. As a designer and programmer his works include '' The Bard's Tale, The Bard's Tale II, and Dark Seed.'' Cranford left the video game industry in 1992 to pursue an aca ...

gave ''Swashbuckler'' a positive review in ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'', only lamenting the rollover of the five-digit score at 250 (which was fixed prior to final publication). The review appeared with an editor's note that although the graphics were superb and the concept unusual, the players at CGW grew tired of the lack of variety after a few dozen kills. ''

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format th ...

Video & Arcade Games'' said that "it's a good change of pace" for those tired of space games. In 2016, ''PC Mag'' included ''Swashbuckler'' on a list of "7 Forgotten Apple II Gaming Classics."

References

{{reflist 1982 video games Apple II games Apple II-only games Datamost games Fighting games Video games about pirates Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games