Airheart is Dan Gorlin‘s predecessor to/prototype of the brilliant Typhoon Thompson and was first released for the Apple II by Broderbund in 1986.
It features the same sea-skimming gameplay as its more famous 1989 sequel and is a great example of what the Apple II is capable of.
Airheart – like Typhoon Thompson – is all about “feel”, and Gorlin certainly knew how to put good ‘feel’ into his games.
Airheart is basically a simple collect ’em up, with some shooting. It’s more tactical than a mindless shooter though.
More: Airheart on Wikipedia
I loved this game on the Amiga but didn’t realise it was an Apple 2 original. I’m going to get it fired up now… Thanks!
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I loved this on the Atari ST when it first came out and didn’t know it was an Apple game until years later. I imagine I had the same feeling as you when I realised that. And fired it up straight away. 🙂
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And wow! All the animation is there, just resolution, colours and a few frames missing. Importantly it even plays like the 16 bit version and surprisingly plays really well with a joystick. I wonder why Dan Gorlin chose mouse only for the 16 bitters?
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Probably because it was the easiest way to integrate analogue speed controls, which does work well in Typhoon Thompson. I guess with the Apple II he had fewer options, so stuck with digital controls.
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Plus: mice had two buttons, while most joysticks at the time didn’t, so that probably played a part in his decision. It’s been a while since I played TT, but iirc it did use both mouse buttons.
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