You are gunner and bomb aimer whose task is to defend your plane against enemy attack and destroy ground targets in 30 different missions. The booklet sets the game in the Second World War and says the plane is based on the Avro Lancaster four-engined bomber, though it is not meant as a simulation. On the way to and from the target you shoot down attacking fighters with a gun sight that has to lead its target, because the bullets take time to arrive. The ground attack missions alternate between high-level bombing, where flak and searchlights punish straight and level flight, and low-level rocket attacks, where you climb, dive at the target, fire and pull out.
A status panel shows time to target, time left in a ground attack, hits, the captain’s messages and the damage to five parts of the plane (flight deck, engines, wings, tailplane and gun turret), each of which affects the controls in its own way. One or two players can play, each at difficulty 1 to 4, with the keyboard or a Sinclair Interface 2, Kempston or AGF joystick, and there is a high score table.
Requires a validation code from the instruction booklet. Booklet is in the zip file. After loading, the game asks for a Softlock security code from the table on pages 4 and 5 of the instructions and allows three attempts.
Program Analysis
Night Gunner is a Digital Integration game from 1985, and the booklet included is for the 48K ZX Spectrum. The tape has a five-line BASIC loader, ng, which sets the colours, shows “NG IS LOADING”, loads the 1,044-byte NGT code at 38736 and starts it with RANDOMIZE USR 39712. That code shows “NIGHT GUNNER IS LOADING” and loads the rest of the game as a single 48,907-byte block without a header.
Controls
- Top row of keys: sight or plane up; bottom row: down.
- Left five keys of the second row: left; right five keys: right.
- CAPS SHIFT or SPACE: fire guns or release bombs.
- SYMBOL SHIFT with B and N: hold; SYMBOL SHIFT with X and C: reset.
Image Gallery
Note: Type-in program listings on this website use ZMAKEBAS notation for graphics characters.