Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

The secret of level thirteen…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 7, 2014

I just discovered this over the weekend. It’s one part of those ‘movies’ of the 1980s which were actually three or more stand-alone short films. This one was apparently entitled “Nightmares,” and the segment was called, “The Bishop of Battle.” Young Emilio Estevez stars as a video game hustler in the apparently thriving practice of playing video games for money that I never knew existed back in the early 80s. He is obsessed with a vector graphics game called “The Bishop of Battle,” which is apparently all the rage because it’s 3D and very hard. Because, you know, back in the 1980s most arcade games were super-easy to beat.

The game has a whopping thirteen levels of progressive challenge, but as it’s a horror movie, it takes the concept of a “kill screen” in a whole ‘nother direction.

The version that breaks the segment into three parts has better resolution, so I’m sharing that one.

And the thrilling, chilling climax to this cautionary tale about sneaking out at night to go play video games…

So kids, remember:

Never play video games alone. Do not attempt to master the big challenges in life.  Never attempt the impossible. And always, always choose the girl and pizza over video games.

Wait, that last one sounds pretty good…


Filed Under: Geek Life, Movies, Retro - Comments: 7 Comments to Read



  • Tesh said,

    Wait, you could make money playing arcade games? I was doing it all wrong. 🙁

    …that said, I’d have chipped in a couple of quarters to see someone play all the way through Dragon’s Lair.

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    Yeah, I feel like I missed out on the Pleiads gambling / tournament circuit.

  • Xenovore said,

    Dragon’s Lair… Everyone wanted to watch it and see the story all the way to the end. But nobody actually wanted to play it. =)

  • Xian said,

    Interesting. An Atari ST BBS that I used to frequent in the the late 1980s was called the Bishop of Battle. I never knew of the film, I assume the BBS name was a reference to it since it was in the same time frame.

  • Ruber Eaglenest said,

    I remember fondly some of this kind of shows. I remember one episode of The Greatest American Hero, about a mysterious arcade machine. But I don’t remember the title.

    I liked a lot this things although nowadays it has little sense.

    Do you have “positive” examples of the kind? Like Tron or War Games.

  • Ruber Eaglenest said,

    Could be this: “Wizards and Warlocks”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwWaReNakF8

  • Ruber Eaglenest said,

    Dragon’s Lair is available at Steam, it is not an impossible game.

top