How to play Canyon Bomber online
Canyon Bomber was made for the Atari paddle controllers. The emulator switches to paddle mode automatically for this game.
- Drop a bomb: Space bar
- Set the charge depth (Sea Bomber only): left and right arrow keys
- Start a new game: F12 (Reset)
- Choose one of the eight games: F11 (Select)
- Difficulty switch: F4 for Player 1, F9 for Player 2
- Switch between paddle and joystick mode: Alt + L
Gameplay
You do not steer. Your plane crosses the screen by itself, and you press the button to release a bomb. The canyon holds eight bars of bricks, and deeper bricks are worth more: 1 point in the top two bars, then 2, 3 and finally 4 points in the bottom two. When the canyon is empty, a new one appears.
A bomb that hits nothing counts as a miss, and so does a pass without dropping any bomb. A bar under your score shrinks with each miss, and after six misses your game ends. In one-player games a computer plane competes with you. The aim is 1000 points, or the higher score when play stops.
In Sea Bomber, ships sail at five depths. You turn the paddle to move a dashed marker that sets how deep your charge explodes. Lower ships score more, from 20 up to 60 points, and the first to 1000 wins.
Game variations and the difficulty switch
- Games 1–4: Canyon Bomber with six misses, for one player (1, 3) or two (2, 4). In games 1 and 2, bricks fall into gaps below them; in 3 and 4 they stay in place.
- Games 5 and 6: two-player races to 1000 points with unlimited bombs, with falling (5) or fixed (6) bricks.
- Games 7 and 8: Sea Bomber, against the computer or another player.
In difficulty position A you must wait until your bomb has finished falling before dropping another. In position B, pressing the button again cancels the bomb so you can drop a new one, as often as you like during a pass. The computer also plays better in position B.
Tips
- Never skip a pass. Crossing without bombing costs a miss anyway, so a doubtful drop is better than none.
- Take more care as the canyon empties. Gaps open up and misses come easily. Wait for a moment when a brick is clearly in your bomb’s path.
- Use falling bricks. In games 1, 2 and 5, a brick that drops to a lower bar is worth that bar’s higher points.
- Fix bad drops in position B. If a bomb is going to miss, or your opponent hits your target first, cancel it and drop again.
The story behind Canyon Bomber
The arcade original appeared in November 1977, built on modified Sprint 2 hardware, with round rocks showing their point values. For the 2600, David Crane swapped the rocks for solid bricks, used colour to show each row’s value and added the Sea Bomber games. Canyon Bomber also inspired the 1981 VIC-20 game Blitz, which used buildings as targets and was copied on many other computers. The game was re-released on the Evercade’s Atari Collection 1 (2020) and in Atari 50 (2022).
Similar games to play next
- Breakout – another Atari paddle game about clearing rows of coloured bricks
- Air-Sea Battle – Atari’s early collection of shooting games on land, at sea and in the air
- Kaboom! – Activision’s paddle game where you catch the bombs instead of dropping them
- Video Olympics – Atari’s collection of Pong-style paddle games