Crossbow is Exidy's first light gun arcade game, released in 1983. It was the first arcade game to utilize digitized sound and speech.
Gameplay
Players are tasked with protecting various adventurers through shooting enemies and obstacles with the crossbow light gun. Adventurers (known as Friends in the game) walk from one side of the screen to the other, while various enemies appear. The player must take care not to shoot Friends, or they will become injured. While Friends are not completely defenseless, they are easily killed by the game's various dangers.
After the first stage, an overworld map is introduced, showing the games eight stages. Rather than selecting a stage, players are directed to shoot large blocks at the bottom of the screen to choose a colored path. There is no indication of which stage the path leads to, but it remains consistent, so they can be memorized.
After certain stages, a new Friend is added. As long as a single Friend makes it safely to the other side of the screen, gameplay continues. The final stage culminates in a battle with the head of Satan, which shoots lighting from his eyes. The player must successfully shoot out each eye, and protect any Friends by shooting lighting bolts to restart gameplay. Subsequent playthroughs are more difficult, but Friends remain.
Gameplay ends when all Friends are killed.
Remakes
Though not directly ported, the game was remade for various console systems and home computers years later. An iPhone version was released in 2010.
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