New versions of H.E.R.O for Atari 7800 and VIC-20 coincidentally being made by unrelated devs

Fans of the game H.E.R.O are in for a treat, as versions of the game are being released or developed for Atari 7800 and VIC-20 machines.

A.R.T.I for the Atari 7800 was developed by MuddyVision and a demo is available to download on the AtariAge forums. The developer says, “A.R.T.I. is my take on a port of the classic 2600/C64/A8 game H.E.R.O. by Jon Van Ryzin. H.E.R.O. along side Keystone Kapers was another of my favourite 2600 titles. This adaptation for the 7800 is based on the 2600, 5200 and C64 versions and closely follows the level layout of all three, with the plan being to add extra levels beyond the originals.”

Coincidentally, another H.E.R.O port is being worked on for the VIC-20, this time by Bjonte on the Denial Forums. This version of the game is based on the Atari 2600 version, and Bjonte says “The game itself is feature complete but it lacks an introduction screen. It will be distributed as a disk image and will require a 32 KiB RAM expansion to run”

The game H.E.R.O (Helicopter Emergency Rescue Operation) was originally released in 1984 by Activision on a variety of platforms including Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 800, Commodore 64, Colecovision, Apple II, ZX Spectrum and MSX.