Candy Bomber

Published 2023-06-12


Original version released December 25, 2020

Based on Operation Little Vittles, this is "Candy Bomber." Fly your plane, avoid Soviet planes buzzing by, and most importantly, drop as much candy as you can onto the occasional pink airfields.

This game is dedicated to Colonel Gail Seymour Halvorsen of the United States Air Force, as well as all those who served in the Berlin Airlift. Halvorsen founded Operation Little Vittles, raising morale in the city of Berlin by airdropping candy to the residents below. His actions were initially unauthorized, but he soon became a national hero.

I initially wrote the basis of this game two years ago, but it sat unfinished until I decided to fix it up and release it this year. The code is barely held together. I regret not finishing this two years ago, or last year -- and I barely did this year due to a bad bout of depression -- but I felt obligated to finish it while Halvorsen, who is at the time of writing 100 years old and sadly in the hospital with COVID-19, was still around. Special thanks to kittenm4ster for their MIDI to PICO-8 Tracker Translator, which gave me the opportunity to put a MIDI rendition of "Away In A Manger" from here into an otherwise musicless game.

This is not a particularly novel or unique game, nor is it meant to be very challenging. Rather, it is simply a tribute to a person who surely improved the lives of countless people: thank you, Gail Halvorsen.