Whirlybird (CRL)

Whirlybird is an arcade style game which puts you in control a military helicopter. Each level has two goals. Firstly, you must destroy an enemy naval vessel by traveling to an island to load your copter with a bomb, and then dropping it on the battleship. While you are thus engaged, you are beset by two fast moving motor-boats armed with diagonally firing guns whose bullets you must dodge. Once the ship has been destroyed, the next stage starts with black planes that rapidly moving from the left to the right of the screen. You must shoot down three of these planes and capture the crew after they bail out of the plane into the water. After three have been captured, you have a limited amount of time to return the prisoners to the island. If this time runs out, it is game over, regardless of how many of your five starting helicopters remain.

Each level is pretty much the same, except that odd levels are in daylight while even levels are at night time. The only way this affects game-play is that the black planes are only possible to spot at night if they pass in front of a white cloud. Later levels are made more difficult by the addition of a grey fighter plane which attacks you with increasing levels of ferocity as you are trying to destroy the black plane.

Published in Italy in the Nova Games n.13 (Ottobre 1987) compilation pack.