Canyon Bomber
Manufacturer: Atari, 1977
Staff:
Designed and programmed by: Howard Delman, who also designed the
game's hardware.
Description:
You control either the blimp or the plane while dropping bombs on
the rocks below. Your goal is to get the highest amount of points
(either against the computer or another player). You are allowed so
many misses before your game ends. Misses are counted as the times
you do not hit any rocks. The scores for the rocks are directly
proportional to the difficulty in hitting those rocks. This game
boils down to precision bombing and thinking ahead as to where the
next bomb will fall. Good luck in taking out all of the rocks in the
canyon.
Atari was at the top of the arcade battle in 1977. Releasing no
fewer then nine arcade games at the time, Atari was the dominating
force and standard that videogames were based on. Many of Atari's
games were simple games of skill and hand-eye coordination.
Canyon Bomber is Delman's second Atari project (Super Bug was his
first). The author describes his game as 'upside-down Breakout' and
says it was a far superior two-player competitive game than when
played one person versus the computer. He modified the Sprint 2's
circuitry, then programmed it.
Tips and strategies:
Scoring in this game is pretty simple, you get the points that are
displayed on the rocks as you destroy them:
1 - one point.
2 - two points.
3 - three points.
4 - four points.
When you start the game, you will be on the left side of your screen
in a blimp. If two players are playing, then player 1 controls the
black blimp while player 2 controls the white blimp. If you are
playing one player, then you control the black blimp. The goal is to
get as many points as you can while avoiding misses. There are two
types of aircraft in this game : Blimps and airplanes. You need to
know the differences between them since your bombing accuracy is
directly related to their movements.
1) Blimps tend to stay at higher altitudes and move slowly. This
gives you more time to plan your bomb run.
2) Planes tend to stay at the middle and lower altitudes and move
fast. This gives you very little time to plan your bomb run.
In order to effectively drop bombs, there are a couple of things you
should take into account :
1) Your forward speed will have a direct impact as to where the bomb
lands. For example, you need to drop your bomb earlier to hit a
specific target instead of dropping it when you are directly over
the target. The reason is because the bomb will drift in the
direction you are flying when it is dropped.
2) Your altitude has a lot to do with where your bombs will fall.
The higher you are, the harder it will be to hit ground targets
since the bomb will only drift so much from point one. Higher
altitudes also tend to make the perspective harder when trying for
rocks in valleys and on ledges.
You can only take out the rocks you are headed toward. This may seem
like common sense but sometimes people attempt to 'lob' a bomb over
a hill on the valley floor hoping to hit the rocks just on the other
side of the hill. Unfortunately, it doesn't work.
Bombs don't 'wrap' around the screen. Your aircraft will go back and
forth at random altitudes. Right when your aircraft turns for
another pass, start planning on where you want to drop your next
bomb.
When the game first starts, you can take out four to five numbered
rocks. As the game progresses, though, these numbers go down
sharply.
If you are fortunate enough to eliminate all the rocks in the
canyon, the canyon will fill back up again. This will happen a
maximum of three times (counting the first wave). After that, the
game is over.
The game is based on misses. If your opponent uses up all their
misses, you can still continue until you use up all of your misses.
The same is true if you use up all of your misses.
Whenever you hit rocks under other rocks, those top rocks will
settle to the next rock. In other words, you can blast the middle
out of the rockpiles but they will still settle to the bottom of the
canyon.
Try to clear lanes to the three and four pointers for a higher score
(The three and four points rocks are usually located on ledges or in
narrow valleys).
When you clear out half the rocks in the canyon, you will change
over from the blimp to the airplane.
Video link: click
here.
