Author: eric Date: Saturday April 25th, 2026

I saw a random post somewhere on Mastodon that mentioned the 1985 DOS game Striker and the included screen shot yanked something deep in the childhood nostalgia region of my brain. I hadn’t thought of it in decades but I remembered playing it as a kid and had to track it down.

screenshot of the title screen from the DOS computer game Striker. It prominently features a helicopter in an action pose. The dominant colours of the screenshot are cyan and magenta

Found it

Dang that CGA cyan/magenta colour palette gets me every single time.

The game itself is actually pretty fun, especially considering it’s from 1985. You fly your helicopter through a horizontal landscape, either shooting or bombing tanks, rockets, or alien ships. The more you maneuver your chopper, the faster your fuel reserves deplete, but destroying ground-based fuel tanks replenish a small amount in your tank.

screenshot from the DOS game Striker. There is a white helicopter on screen and the outline of terrain beneath it

Attract mode

The end of each level has a small challenge; center your helicopter on a landing pad to pick up spies and then the next level you do the same to drop them off. Another is to pick up cargo, etc.

The game isn’t overly challenging and it felt really good to play it again. According to the readme included, it was created by a Derek Williams. Derek, if you’re still out there, know that childhood me and adult me had a lot of fun with this.