Dambusters

Each mission involves flying the bomber over the English Channel, over Germany, dropping the bouncing bomb on the Dam, flying back over Germany and the English Channel, and finally landing safely in England. As you approach the target, the enemy planes attack more frequently and accurately. As well as the threat of being shot down, the player could also run out of fuel during the mission, ending the game. The game scrolls from left to right on the way to the target, and from right to left on the return leg. The button to release the bomb is as a thumb-trigger on the joystick. To accurately hit the target, the player has to fly at a particular height, achieved by matching the positions of two targeting points, and release the bomb at a set distance from the wall of the dam. This proves very difficult.

Dambusters was one of very few games to be written by a UK company.

The game is a conversion for Galaxian hardware, using a daughter board and lots of wire.

LICENSOR: South West Research (Bristol, UK)

There is a test switch and a high-score name clear switch. One of the DIP switches is used to "filter" swear words from the high score table. Another removes the Union Jack from the attract mode.

The game uses battery backed RAM and, much to no one's surprise, the battery tends to leak. There does not appear to be a means to reset the RAM and it contains some game play information. Hence, if the RAM becomes corrupt, the game may become unplayable.