Bomber (video game)
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| Bomber | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | Inline Design |
| Publishers | Inline Design, Deadly Games |
| Designer | Rene Vidmer |
| Platform | Macintosh |
| Release | 1989 |
Bomber, also known as Bomber 3 or Bomber III, is a combat flight simulation game developed and released in 1989 by Inline Design for the Macintosh.
The player commands a B-17 crew to perform bombing missions over Europe during World War II, in which hazards include German fighter attacks, flak, and oxygen and heat becoming depleted, while victorious assignments provide rank and rating promotions.[1] The game starts when the Base Commander's Headquarters assigns the player a bombing run.[1] Upon successfully bombing 25 targets, the bomber returns home to the US and receives a medal.[2]
Gameplay
The player controls the pilot, co-pilot, bombardier, navigator, and gunners for the plane. As the bombardier, the player uses the included Photo Recon booklet (which is also the game's copy protection) to aim the bombsight over the landscape to locate the target seen in the photo, pressing the salvo button to release a bomb.[1] When attacked by fighters, the player controls a gunner at one of the bomber's six gun positions each armed with twin 50-caliber machine guns.[1] Personnel can be killed during a mission.[1]
Development
Bomber, also known by the full title of Bomber 3: Flak Alley, was developed by Inline Design using HyperCard as a software environment.[1] Darryl Peck had started Inline Design with an old friend, intending the company to be a design firm for furniture and yachts.[3] When he found out that a friend of his partner was finishing Bomber and intended to post it as sharewere, Peck says "I convinced him to let me publish it by saying that if we sold 5,000 copies we would have about $100,000 in return. He bought the proposal and off we went. Rather than start a new company, I used the Inline Design name we had already registered."[3] Before long, Inline Design had sold over 10,000 copies of Bomber.[3] Bomber was Inline Design's biggest selling title in 1991 but Inline Design decided to discontinue selling the game that year because Peck was a pacifist and he felt the game promoted violence; he wanted his business to succeed by publishing "entertaining, challenging, non-violent games."[4]
Re-release
The game, titled Bomber 3, would be digitally rereleased by MicroProse for Windows 7 onwards on Steam in early 2020's.[5][6] It was officially rereleased on Steam in January 23, 2024. However by then, the Steam client dropped support for a few older Windows operating systems before Windows 10.[7]