Chopper Command (C64) - Exclusive WIP screenshots from Antonio Savona

Chopper Command is an Atari 2600 exclusive title published by Activision and released in June 1982, programmed by Bob Whitehead. C64 fans can look forward to their own port currently being developed by Antonio Savona (P0 Snake, Planet Golf, L'abbaye des Morts) and graphics by Steven Day, who did loading screens for past classics like Green Beret, Ballblazer and Highlander as well as more modern releases like Ghosts N Goblins Arcade and Prince of Persia.

These in development screenshots and GIF show some seriously impressive scrolling as well as graphics very faithful to the 1982 Atari original (including Activision logo placed at the center bottom of the screen). Antonio revealed today that he wants to keep the project under 4KB, the current size of the game is 3.2KB and he still has to do some AI and collision work to get the main game engine working properly. And he plans to make the game's source code open source.

I asked Antonio if there were some technical challenges he faced making this port: The C64 version has "many rastersplits to make up for the lack of colors on the mountains. The atari VCS has 128 colors and can do gradients, for the C64 I had to improvise"

Antonio is taking a short break from other C64 development work to complete this game collaboration with Steven Day and while there's no word on a release date yet, we should be able to freely download the game and play it very soon, so stay tuned for updates.

Antonio Savona on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tonysavon

Posted by @hayesmaker64

Fans of Creatures 2 (C64) can watch me trying to beat Creatures 2 for the very first time currently.  Just follow my Twitch channel and look out for my go live announcements on Twitch, Twitter or Discord. (Links are on my Twitch page)

https://twitch.tv/hayesmaker64