Not long after publisher Psytronik Software announced its “officially blessed” PC conversion of Commodore 64 classic Armalyte, developer S-A-S designs unveiled this trailer for the shoot'em up releasing later this year.

S-A-S also recently sat with retro/indie/coin-op gaming blog JOMG to talk about its process developing the title, and mentioned that it's programming Armalyte in OpenGL, hinting that it could thus potentially lead to a Mac version if there's enough interest. One of the game's changes (other than its new graphics, animation, music, and sound effects) will be an option to use a separate button for activating special weapons, instead of having to hold down the fire button.

In this excerpt, coder Stuart Collier talks about S-A-S's approaches to free and commercial projects:

"There’s no real difference as we always put 200% into every release, free or retail games should have the same attention to detail and playtesting. Saying that -- we are spending a bit more time making sure [Armalyte] will work on a 'minimum' system.

There’ve been a few authors that have have said no to a few free remakes, saying that they have new versions coming out. Years on and still no release (which is a crying shame). Us part time groups and individuals have no budget and no outlays, so we get the job done (although slower). I would love to imagine what we could accomplish if we were full time."

You can read the full interview and see comparison screenshots of the Commodore 64 and PC versions at Just One More Game.