Alpharay

Alpharay arrived in 2019 and immediately gave Commodore Plus 4 owners something to shout about. Developed by the Puls4r team, the same crew responsible for the acclaimed Pets Rescue on the same hardware, and published by Psytronik Software, this is a horizontal scrolling shoot em up that pushes the TED chip in the Plus 4 harder than most people thought was possible on an 8-bit machine from 1984.

The game was coded by Stefan Mader with additional code by Bubis. Graphics were handled by KiCHY and Nero, with additional art from Lu Isa and Noud, and the soundtrack was composed by 5tarbuck. Cover art came from Trevor Storey, whose work has become a familiar sight across the Psytronik catalogue.

The story places you in the cockpit of the Alpharay fighter in the Archeron sector. A robotic fleet is invading and you are the pilot selected to stop it. There are six levels to fight through, each with distinct visual design and enemy formations. As you progress you collect weapon power-ups that change what your ship can do, with options including stronger forward fire and multi-directional shots. The difficulty builds steadily, and the game has a lot to offer whether you are picking it up for the first time or coming back to push your score higher.

Alpharay was released in both a free download version and as a commercial physical release in three formats: a standard budget disk edition, a premium disk edition with full colour artwork, and a Collector's Edition box set that includes the game, a soundtrack CD, and additional extras. The soundtrack was also released separately by 5tarbuck on Bandcamp.

In this video we play through Alpharay with full commentary, sharing thoughts on what the game does and how it holds up as one of the standout releases in the Plus 4 library. This channel is built around retro and homebrew gaming with honest, real-time commentary, and Alpharay is exactly the kind of title this channel exists to cover.

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Available from https://psytronik.itch.io/alpharay.