The Way of the Exploding Fist

The Way of the Exploding Fist appeared in 1985 through Melbourne House, and the record credits Gregg Barnett and Greg Holland — individuals rather than a large studio. That is characteristic of the mid-eighties, when a home computer game could still be built by one or two people whose names went straight onto the packaging.

It is a one-on-one karate game. Each fighter has a set of kicks, punches, blocks and evasions selected by combining a direction with a button, and hits are scored — a clean strike counts as a full point, a weaker one as a half, and the first to reach the set total wins the bout. That scoring system gave the fighting a measured quality, because a rushed attack cost as much as patience earned, and a round could be won simply by waiting for a mistake.

On the ZX Spectrum the animation is the notable achievement. The machine allowed only one colour pair per eight-pixel block, so two figures with many poses standing side by side was both a technical problem and a visual compromise. The game answered it with strongly readable silhouettes that stay legible while moving, and with a background reduced to a horizon and a few sparse features.

Melbourne House pushed the title in Britain as one of the first fighting games taken seriously, including two people playing at the same computer. Sequels followed, though the catalogue records no series for this entry. As evidence of where the entire later one-on-one genre came from, it is among the primary documents.

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