Choplifter it's a shooter genre video game scrolling developed in 1982 by Dan Gorlin and published by Brøderbund for Apple II. The peculiarity lies precisely in the fact that initially the game was designed for home computers and only later proposed in an arcade version.
It was SEGA in 1985 who brought it 
in arcades, before converting it to its 8-bit console, the Sega Master System. Choplifter was written by Gorlin in about 6 months of work; he was inspired by Defender and his passion for helicopters.
In Choplifter they take on the role of a helicopter pilot, whose goal is to rescue hostages held captive by the "evil Bungeling empire". The enemies that populate the levels are numerous and fearsome: they range from jets armed with missiles to tanksbut there are also flying mines and all sorts of bombs. The view is in profile, with free horizontal scrolling in both directions; compared to the starting point, the playing area is on the left. The helicopter can face left or right to shoot sideways at various angles, or face the player to shoot vertically towards the ground.
The barracks in which the hostages there are 16. Apart from the first, which is already open, the others must be broken through by the player, so as to let the hostages out. These can be brought to the base at the beginning of the level, but only in groups of 3, as this is the capacity of the helicopter. In the upper part of the screen, the hostages killed (in red), those on board the helicopter (in blue) and those saved (in green) are indicated; this is the only score, destroying enemies does not produce points.
LEVEL SELECTION
In the first screen of the title press UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, KEY 1. In the second screen press the same keys. If you perform the procedure correctly, you will be taken to a level selection screen. At this point just press key 1 to select the level from which to start.
