''The Bilestoad'' is a video game by Marc Goodman (credited as "Mangrove Earthshoe") 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 in 1982 by Datamost. In ''The Bilestoad'', players control "meatlings" that hack and battle with axes and shields from a top-view perspective. The name is derived from the German words ''Beil'' (axe) and ''Tod'' (death). The odd spelling reflects Goodman's idea of a future language similar to '' A Clockwork Orange'''s Nadsat in which English has been modified by the borrowing of foreign words. Although the game may seem medieval, the backstory in the manual explains that the axe fighting is actually a future virtual reality game designed to reduce real violence. According to the author, influences for ''The Bilestoad'' include the movie '' Excalibur'' and ''

Monty Python and the Holy Grail ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' is a 1975 British comedy film satirizing the Arthurian legend, written and performed by the Monty Python comedy group (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin) an ...

''.

Gameplay

The game can be played online in an

emulato
here
''The Bilestoad'' allows a human player to fight against either a computer-controlled opponent or another human. One can also pit two robots against each other. Movement and combat is accomplished with the keyboard, pressing keys to swing the gladiator's axe or shield outwards or inwards, or to make the gladiator turn, stop or walk. The game play is quite violent and bloody—players lop off their opponents' shield or sword arms, and dispatch them by decapitation. Players progress through levels by successfully defeating their opponent. The highest level is called the 'Master' level. The arena of combat is a small island, maps of which (at short, medium, and long range) are shown at the right side of the screen. Scattered around the arena are various objects, including yin/yang discs which players can stand on to accelerate their movement, stars that transport players to other points in the arena, and "faces" that allow players to leave the level. The game offers more strategic variation than many

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 ...

s, letting the player run away and be chased around the island. The musical soundtrack begins with Beethoven's " Für Elise".

Controls

Players control the gladiators using two groupings of keys: one on the left side of the keyboard, the other on the right.

Development

The

has no built-in tone generator; all sound and music is produced by toggling on/off the speaker at appropriate intervals to generate the desired frequency. The game's incorporation of music with gameplay was an impressive technical feat.

Source Code

Source code for ''The Bilestoad'' was found on two 5.25 diskettes retrieved from a dumpster in Berkeley, California and sold on eBay to the maintainer o
apple2games.com
It was released on April 20, 2019 and is availabl
here
The code is assembly and appears to have no comments. However, there are useful labels in various files such a
BLOOD

Reception

Legacy

In the mid-1990s, Marc Goodman also released an alpha demo of a higher-resolution re-working of the game for the color Macintosh platform. Peter Akemann cited ''The Bilestoad'' as a major inspiration for his game '' Die by the Sword''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bilestoad 1982 video games Apple II games Apple II-only games Datamost games Fighting games Multiplayer and single-player video games Top-down video games Video games developed in the United States