// RETRO GAMES ARCHIVE :: H.E.R.O.

H.E.R.O. (Helicopter Emergency Rescue Operation) was designed by John Van Ryzin for Activision and released in 1984, first on the Atari 2600. You play Roderick Hero, who flies down mine shafts with a backpack propeller to rescue trapped miners. A helmet laser shoots spiders, bats and moths. Dynamite blasts through walls, as long as you get clear in time. Touching a lantern puts out the lights.

Power drains as you go, and whatever is left counts towards your score when you reach the miner. Twenty levels lead deeper into the mine, past magma walls, rafts on underground rivers and tentacles reaching out of the rock, before PRO mode. The Commodore 64 version was adapted by The Softworks.

This is a native C/SDL2 port of the C64 version for Linux handhelds through PortMaster, Linux desktops, the Steam Deck, Windows and macOS. All 155 routines of the original 6502 program are translated to C and checked against the original code on real game states. All 256 screens of the 20 levels build identically. The C64's VIC-II and SID chips are modelled, and there's an optional hi-res picture.