Harrier Attack - 'remaster' of the 8-bit classic

Dev diaries
#1

Anyone over about the age of 40 (that’d be me then) may remember playing Harrier Attack on their 8-bit home computer in the early 1980s.

For the uninitiated : Harrier Attack is a horizontal scrolling shoot, bomb and dodge affair. It’s hard to believe now but the game caused some controversy when it was released in 1983 as British Harriers had helped win the Falklands War in 1982.

On a personal level, it was the first game I ever owned so has significant nostalgic value for me. There is currently only one similar game on Google Play and it’s quite poor so I’m aiming to provide a faithful recreation of the original - with slightly better graphics, sounds and gameplay.

I’m targetting Android and browser. This will be my first Android game in landscape format using a virtual joypad.

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#2

Yay, sounds like great fun! I don’t recall ever playing it on my C64 though. I played a lot of Blue Max though. Best of luck!

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#3

You sure are one productive guy—really looking forward to following this one :slight_smile:

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#4

Good progress has been made over the weekend developing Harrier Attack. The core of the game is all working and I’m fairly happy with most of it. Playing the game does remind me of the 35-year-old original - which was part of the plan. It looks basic on purpose as it’s based on an 8-bit game with only 4 colour graphics.

In addition to the original, I’ve added some particle effects, moving clouds and ‘real’ sound effects. The various quirks of the original will also be included - they add to the nostalgic charm of old games. One being if you damage your aircraft carrier on take-off, it wont be there when you come back and you’re left to fly out to sea until you run out of fuel.

The various transition stuff and menus are still to do. The main challenge to come is getting the virtual joypad to work reliably on Android - it’s not as straight forward as I’d first imagined.

All being well, the game should be released next week.

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#5

Early gameplay footage from YouTube

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#6

The HTML5 browser build of Harrier Attack is ready to go.

Play it now

The Android version requires a bit more work and should be ready some time over this coming weekend.

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