Santron (C64) by SarahJaneAvory

Santron is a fast-paced vertical shoot-em-up for the Commodore 64 (PAL).
This game is a special Christmas version of Neutron, a game that was entered in RGCD’s C64 16KB Cartridge GameDev Compo 2019.

All programming, graphics, and sound by Sarah Jane Avory.
(C) 2019 Witchsoft.
NB: Although the game has been coded for PAL, it will run quite happily on an NTSC machine, just at a faster speed. But v1.1 now plays the music at the right speed on NTSC.
Blurb:
Jack Frost is determined to ruin Christmas, so he has spelled various items associated with Christmas! Use the new S.A.N.T.A.H.A.T.01 space fighter and put an end to Jack’s mischief!
Be on the watch out for perilous peppermint swirls, killer snowmen, kamikaze icicles, plasma spitting sugar mice, charging turkey legs, and other assorted twisted adversaries.
But help is on hand, so lookout for useful floating presents, each with a power-up bauble inside…
Only you can save Christmas, so strap in, and blast off!
Features:

9 challenging stages of increasing difficulty.
Player weapon upgrades.
3 different background styles each with its own Christmas tune.
Loads of Christmas themed enemies.
Mid-stage mini-bosses.
End of stage boss.

Controls:
Joystick in port 2, or Keyboard:

S – Up.
X – Down.
< – Left.
– Right.
SPACE – Fire!

NB: pause key can be configured in the options screen.

UPDATES FOR v1.1:

Added new PAUSE option so that the pause key can be configured to be one of the following keys:
Added high-score table.
Added save for settings (remembers auto-fire , plus high-scores).
Can save settings (including high scores) to either device 8 or 9.
Cartridge version is Easy Flash and will auto-save settings to cartridge.
Added my latest music player so that NTSC version will play the music at the correct speed.