Dragonwing
A simple but technically accomplished game for the VIC-20, Dragonwing puts
you in a spaceship flying through a system of caves at a very fast pace. As
you move along, and try not to crash into the undulating cave walls, you
expend fuel, and must pick up new fuel supplies from the cave floor. Unlike
Scramble or Super Cobra, flying through the caves is not easy, even though
they are not guarded by missile silos. Since your vehicle is not a helicopter,
but a rocket, you fly through the caves at a very fast pace and without
stopping. The laws of gravity an inertia mean that you can’t adjust your pace
with pixel precision. Instead, your altitude must be consistently altered so
that you do not crash into the ground, while you have to compensate your
maneuvers so as not to crash into the ceiling.
Programmed in 2002, Dragonwing has little in common with the VIC-20 games of
twenty years earlier, what with multicolor sprites, smooth fast scrolling and
a breakbeat soundtrack played throughout the game, despite running on an
unexpanded VIC-20.
Dragonwing