About The Game
The basic concept mirrors the classic 'Galagaish' shoot'em up formula: pilot your ship at the bottom of the screen, repel waves of descending aliens, survive the bosses. Where most Galaga clones stop, Deluxe Galaga keeps going.
Worked into the gameplay are powerups — from enhanced firepower to speed upgrades to protective armour — plus the ability to capture alien ships and make them fight for you. A full in-game economy lets you spend money at the shop every five waves or so. And then there are the two mini-games: the Meteor Storm and the Memory Station.
With 75 levels of increasingly punishing action, random events, hidden secrets, and two-player co-op that remains one of the best ever implemented in a shoot'em up — this game does not let you go easily.
History
03/09/95 … 47,865 lines of Devpac v3.04 assembler code. Assembly time: 32.44 seconds on an A1200/030/33MHz with 6MB RAM.
That is the specification of the final build (V2.6) of Deluxe Galaga — one of the all-time best games for the Amiga, and one of the finest shoot'em ups ever created. It premiered with V1.0 on October 20, 1993.
The game was voted into the Top 100 Games of All Time for the Amiga, reaching #19. Every other title on the list was a commercial release — except one other: Deluxe PacMan, also by Edgar.
Deluxe Galaga is based on the game StarBattle on the old VIC-20. That was one excellent game that I had a lot of fun with. My version is a simple (?) shoot'em up with good game play, but not so much fancy graphics. What I want from a game is some relaxation for a couple of minutes, and then be able to quit and do some more work. — Edgar M. Vigdal, Official Deluxe Galaga Documentation