Starforge

A new dogfighting and ship-building game for the ZX Spectrum 128K.

Fight your way across a star map of 169 sectors to the battle station at its centre. Every sector holds its own generated ship with its own name, the same every game and no two alike. Beat one and you can salvage the wreck: strip its parts, or keep the whole ship for your fleet.

Back in the hangar, build your ships slot by slot: weapons in the nose bays, engines at the back, armour down the sides, generators and shields in the core. Forge two parts into one a level up, buy, sell, repair, and pick your next fight. The game ends when your last ship is lost.

FEATURES

- Fast, momentum-based dogfights with afterburners, cloaks and teleporters

- 169 sectors, each with its own generated ship and name

- Salvage the ships you beat: strip them for parts or fly them yourself

- Slot-by-slot ship building, a forge, and a fleet of up to 8 ships

- AY music and sound on the 128K

- Save and load your game on tape

- Keyboard, Kempston, Cursor and Sinclair joysticks

HOW TO PLAY

Download starforge.zip, unzip it, and open starforge.tap in any ZX Spectrum emulator set to a 128K machine (Fuse, ZEsarUX, Spectaculator, ...). It needs a 128K Spectrum and won't run on a 48K. On real hardware, load it from a DivMMC or a TZX player.

Controls are in the README.txt included in the download. In a fight: W thrust, A/D turn, Space fire.

(c) 2026 Peter Coupe