Starbirds is a shoot'em up game for Amiga computers. The game was developed from 1993 to 1996 by Dario Hardmeier (graphics, animations) and Samo Jordan (programming, game design, music). Originally, it was bundled with some commercial Amiga software. Later, it was released as Freeware.

The developers themselves suggest that, today, you play Starbirds by running the game using AMIGA emulation software. Starbirds was successfully tested with the UAE emulator, which is recommended to run the game. This way, you can run it on many computer platforms,

Starbirds website states that the game is released as free software under the MIT License. The game is provided as an ADF file, which represents the original Starbirds floppy disk and which can be used with the UAE emulator. The website offers an option to download the game.

Starbirds is a shoot 'em up game in the style of R-Type, Apidya and Wings of Death. The gameplay is simple: the player controls a spaceship called the Starbird and tries to survive by shooting as many enemies as possible.

Each of the four horizontally scrolling levels is packed with a huge number of enemies and is guarded by a large boss with big shields and powerful weapons. The levels allow players to take different paths each time.

“A special feature of Starbirds is the weapon system, which was inspired by action games like Wings of Death and Lethal Xcess. There are two categories of weapons: primary and secondary weapons. Each category consists of 8 different types of weapons; four of each category are selected by the player before entering the first level. The player can decide at any time if the approaching enemies should be attacked using the primary or secondary weapon. By repeated pressing of the fire button, the primary weapon is fired; by holding down the button, the secondary weapon is fired.” (Source: Jordan, Hardmeier)

“The currently active weapon can be changed by collecting weapon symbols, which are left behind by exploding enemies quite often. Blue symbols represent primary weapons, red symbols secondary weapons. Every weapon has five different powers. If a symbol is collected, which represents one of the currently active weapons, then its power increases by one. Therefore, it is advantageous to collect the same symbol several times to get a weapon with high power. On the other hand, changing a weapon reduces the power by one. Too many changes without an intermediate power-up quickly lead to a poorly armed spaceship with little chance of survival.” (Source: Jordan, Hardmeier)

The Starbird spaceship cannot withstand hits from enemies, their shots or the background. Fortunately, the player has six spaceships available and can restart the game three times from the last level visited. The game has four difficulty levels, which can be selected on the main screen before entering the first level. Finally, the game can be played by two players simultaneously.