to keep playing after losing a live and progress further, though the idea of playing as a helicopter was influenced by Gyrodine because the team felt it could work as a shoot 'em up title where the screen kept scrolling. When creating the artwork for Tiger-Heli, which has been described as "polygonal" in recent interviews, Toaplan was realizing research for a possible flight simulator they could develop themselves and one of the project's designers implemented a sample image from the simulator into the game. The concept of using a bomb in a shoot 'em up game came up during development, where the team questioned how to make the title more engaging for players but it was never intended for defensive purposes according to them, as the mechanic was instead implemented to provide an aggressive feeling against enemies during difficult situations in the title. Several other features were integrated into the project as a way to keep audiences playing such as the continuous stage scrolling during the high score screen, which was akin to a drama. According to Uemura, development was financed with the team's own funds, as Taito solely focused on distribution and Toaplan's name could not be displayed in the game due to contractual arrangements. The soundtrack was composed by Uemura, who also created the sound effects. When writing the music during development, Uemura intended the songs to convey a sense of bravery but he was limited due to technical and memory restrictions at the time of release. Release Tiger-Heli was released in arcades across Japan and North America in October 1985 by Taito and Romstar. On 21 November 1988, an album containing music from the title and its sequel was co-published exclusively in Japan by Scitron and Pony Canyon. On 5 December 1986, a Nintendo Entertainment System port of Tiger-Heli developed by Micronics was first released in Japan by Pony Canyon. It was then released in North America in September 1987 by Acclaim Entertainment, who also distributed the title across Europe in January 1990. This version was also released in South Korea by Hyundai Electronics in 1987. Both the original arcade version and the later NES port are similar but have a number of key differences between each other such as the latter having a smaller color palette and lower screen resolution that led to sprites being recolored and the graphics redrawn in different ways, an arranged soundtrack