''Airheart'' is an action game designed and programmed by

Dan Gorlin Dan Gorlin is a video game programmer and designer best known for his 1982 Apple II game ''Choplifter'', in which the player pilots a helicopter to rescue hostages. His next Apple II game, ''Airheart'' (1987), took three years to complete. While tec ...

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 by Broderbund in 1986. It requires a 128K Apple IIe (or later) to run, as it uses the 16-color double hi-res graphics mode. After three years of development, the game was technically advanced at its time of release, using scaled sprites for 3D effects, but did not include all of the planned features. Gorlin reworked the game as '' Typhoon Thompson in Search for the Sea Child'' for the

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

(1988), and later the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

(1990), which is closer to what he originally envisioned.

Gameplay

The name ''Airheart'' is the title the player aspires to earn. The user controls a jet-propelled flotation device. They must navigate their craft and fight robotic defenders. Spirit guardians instruct the player to collect certain items, such as a sword or a goblet, which are needed for a final battle to free an infant boy prince.

Development

Gorlin had great success with his first title, ''

Choplifter ''Choplifter'' (stylized as ''Choplifter!'') is military themed scrolling shooter developed by Dan Gorlin for the Apple II and published by Broderbund in 1982. It was ported to the Atari 8-bit family the same year and also to the VIC-20, Com ...

'', which he developed in six months. ''Airheart'' took about three years to develop. This is in large part because he also developed other games which he lost interest in and never completed and also because he did a lot of research and built a number of

tools A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates ba ...

to help in game development. Gorlin was unable to include all the features he planned. At one point, for example, he had tunnel and underwater levels working, but was unable to complete them due to time constraints. Tunnels and islands, in fact, were key elements of his original vision for the game, but had to be scrapped, being too ambitious for the time. The largest version of each sprite was created by hand, then Gorlin used proprietary tools to create the roughly twenty smaller versions. Storing these sprites in RAM, he was able to simulate scaling in realtime. Though the sprites used a lot of memory, it was the only method that satisfied Gorlin since he hated the low-polygon look of other contemporary games.

Jordan Mechner Jordan Mechner (born June 4, 1964) is an American video game designer, author, screenwriter, and filmmaker. He is best known for designing and programming the Broderbund Apple II games ''Karateka'' and '' Prince of Persia'' in the 1980s, the la ...

visited Gorlin in 1986 and saw the final version of the game. He wrote in his journal "It’s got some staggering special effects and it’s no fun at all to play."

Reception

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web, title=The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers, url=https://dadgum.com/giantlist/ , last1=Hague , first1=James 1986 video games Action video games Apple II games Apple II-only games Broderbund games North America-exclusive video games Video games about robots Video games developed in the United States