Galaga - Henrik Wening - Commodore PET (Emulated, VICE) - 28,780 points.

Galaga is a Commodore PET version of the 1981 Namco arcade game of the same name. It was written by Henrik Wening and released in 1982. As far as I could tell he seemed to be selling it directly himself.
If you don't know the PET, it was an early Commodore machine, designed for business and educational use, never for games, and featured a fixed character set that could not be redefined. You therefore were very limited in what you could do with visuals in games. That shows in this version of Galaga, but it is more than made up for in the excellent gameplay. As the waves of aliens arrive onscreen, the smoothness and speed is remarkable for a PET game. It may be monochrome, it may have chunky graphics, but when you play this game it is every bit a Galaga-clone as much as any other version. The game even includes the Challenging Stages and the possibility of capture of one of your fighters by the larger enemy ships. The sound is very good too, as similar to the arcade game as you could expect on a PET.
This game was quite a surprise to me. I was not expecting a game anywhere near as much fun to play as this one. Despite the primitive nature of the machine it is running on, I always felt like I was immersed in Galaga every time I played. This is one of those unexpected little gems that comes along every so often. It is amazing to think this was written in 1982 - it feels more like a modern day retro project. It is not easy though, thanks to the monochrome colour and limited graphics capability, it can be hard to see and avoid the enemy bullets. You will probably score less on this version than some of the other versions on other machines as a result.
This run was made on the 17th December 2024 using the VICE emulator on PC. There are no adjustable skill levels. The score achieved was 28,780 points.
Time stamps:
00:30 Title screen and score table.
00:35 Player number and joystick / keyboard selection.
00:40 Game begins.
01:11 First wave destroyed.
01:43 Second wave destroyed.
02:10 Challenging Stage ends and an extra life is awarded for passing 20,000 points.
02:35 First life lost.
02:46 Second life lost.
02:56 Third life lost.
03:08 Wave 4 destroyed.
03:18 Fourth life lost.
03:32 Fifth life lost.
03:40 Sixth life lost. Game Over! Final score 28,780 points.
Intro Music:
Music by: Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio
Title: Legend
/ @whitebataudio

[@simonstech]

wonderful game on that platform

[@tgphighscoreruns4111]

It is, and a lovely surprise. Exploring the world of very old games on obscure systems, you go through a lot of so-so stuff (I'm being polite) and then you find wonderful little gems like this one.