Paratrooper

Introduction

I implemented a game that is heavily inspired by Paratrooper. In 1982, Greg Kuperberg built Paratrooper for the IBM PC. It was based on Sabotage for Apple II, developed by Mark Allen in 1981.

Paratrooper was the stuff that childhood dreams are made of.

This version is implemented in TypeScript and uses excalibur.

Play!

Behavior

Swivel the gun with left/right. The up key stops the swivel gun and shoots a missile. (These controls are often perceived as wrong and/or annoying. While that may be the case, they mimic the behavior of the original game.) 'p' or Space (un)pauses the game.

Shooting a missile costs 1 point. A paratrooper yields 5 points; shooting a paratrooper in freefall yields 3 extra points. A helicopter or a bomber yields 10 points. A bomb yields 25 points.

If 4 paratroopers assemble on one side of the canon, you die.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Maarten Hulshoff for the fond memories, his patience, for testing, and for providing feedback.