Aufgeblähte Drossel (/ˈaʊ̯fɡəˌblɛːtə ˈdɹɒsəl/) is a retro-styled arcadey action game in which you control a bird that delivers East-German consumer goods to the citizens. But balloons, donkeys, and other obstacles are in the way that inflate the bird upon contact. When it pops for good, you lose a life.

The game is intended to look and feel like it was made in the late East Germany (DDR) on an East German KC 85/4 computer. That's why the entire game is in German. But don't worry, it's rather self-explanatory.

[SPACE] or [↑]	Flap
[ENTER]	Menu confirm
[Esc]	Pause
[M]	Toggle music
[F8]	Toggle KC85/4 tile mode*

In download version only:

[F11]	Toggle CRT-shader
[Ctrl]+[+]	Increase game window size
[Ctrl]+[–]	Decrease game window size
[Alt]+[Enter]	Toggle Fullscreen

* The KC-85/4 could, in fact, not address individual pixels, at least not at the color fidelity this game is in. This setting switches the display to tile mode, meaning only portions of 8×8 pixels get updated, resulting in a choppy but more authentic simulation (see the For the Nerds section, below). It's also less enjoyable to play.

Even in German the name is an usual one for a game, as it translates to "Bloated Thrush"; a thrush being a small bird. The game's inception came from listening to a German podcast, Stay Forever, on the topic of Eastern German computers and games.

In an additional episode, the hosts also told the story of an East Berlin computer club back in the day that was undermined by a Stasi spy. Dutifully, this unknown person reported the titles of all Western games that were played at this club and took it upon himself to translate the titles of all ~200 games to German, oftentimes hilariously incorrect. That's the origin of Aufgeblähte Drossel, as it's a botched attempt to translate the title of the ZX Spectrum game Full Throttle.

The podcast hosts mused what people perusing this translated list of games might have imagined the games to be—and so did I. Aufgeblähte Drossel is my take on it.

The Donkey in the game is a reference to Bill Gates' DONKEY.BAS demo game he wrote for DOS 1.1's BASIC . In the podcast, this game occasionally gets mentioned. 

Also, Erich Honecker, last head of state of East Germany, uttered an often-referenced rhyme when he was shown the first 32-bit processor of East German production: "Den Sozialismus in seinem Lauf, halten weder Ochs noch Esel auf" (roughly "Socialism in its course, can't be stopped by neither ox nor horse", instead in the German original it's "donkey" in place of horse.)

The products you deliver in the game are existing consumer goods that various East German VEBs, publicly owned enterprises, produced to meet the mandated quota of consumer goods, regardless of their main purpose. That's why you have an explosives factory producing fly swatters or a shipyard bottle openers.

Yep, my game is lore-heavy!

You’re right, this game would not have been possible on the original hardware. All deviations from simulating the original hardware have been made in favor of gameplay.

• Amount of different colors per tile: Usually you’d get one color for every 8 pixels, or a 8×8 tile with two colors when in character mode.
• Faster display update: My game runs at up to 60 fps even when there is a lot happening. A KC85’s CPU wouldn’t haven been able to keep up.
• Pixel-perfect movement: The KC85 has no support for sprites, everything has to be done with character graphics that are limited to the tile grid. You can simulate this by hitting F8.
• The music sounds not right: Adhering to the KC85's capabilities (=2 square wave oscillators) the game never plays more than two channels at once. My music might also have sounds that lie outside the octaval range as I employed some tricks I know from making NES and GameBoy chiptunes. I don’t know whether the KC 85’s CPU would have been fast enough to issue commands to the sound chip as fast as an NES, but basically, it should have been capable to produce the sound that’s in the game.

While the game is pretty much done, I still want to keep tinkering with it, so please report any bugs you find and leave feedback. 

By the way, the high-scores are local, even when you play it in the browser. They also are a bit unreliable, I've learned. It's on my to-do list.

Game director, programming, game design, graphics, music, sound effects, intern, and assistant to Mr. Strahl