Canyon Bomber

The player and an opponent fly a blimp or biplane over a canyon full of numbered, circular rocks, arranged in layers. The player does not control the flight of vehicles, but only presses a single button to drop a bomb which destroys rocks and gives points. Each rock is labeled with the points given for destroying it. As the number of rocks is reduced, it becomes harder to hit them without missing. The third time a player drops a bomb without hitting a rock, the game is over.

To create Canyon Bomber, Allen modified a Sprint 2 board which she then programmed. The first version of the game required 3K of ROM. As ROMs were expensive at the time, Allen’s supervisor requested that she fit the game into 2K, which she did.

The 1981 VIC-20 game Blitz was inspired by a description of Canyon Bomber and used buildings as the targets instead of rocks. That change inspired many subsequent Blitz clones for different systems.

Canyon Bomber was re-released as part of Atari Collection 1 for the Evercade in 2020 and Atari 50 in 2022 for multiple consoles.