Released as a Virtual Boy launch game, it requires the player to pilot a space fighter and defeat the army of a malevolent artificial intelligence called KAOS.

According to the console's creator, Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo tried to "maintain as much control as possible" over Virtual Boy game development so that low-quality releases by outside companies could be avoided.

[8] Although T&E Soft was known for golf video games,[5] the design of Red Alarm was inspired by that of Star Fox,[7] a rail shooter for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

[11] Later that year, Red Alarm and several other titles were released alongside the console,[12] which debuted on July 21 in Japan and August 14 in the United States.

[9][13] Writing for Weekly Famicom Tsūshin, Isabella Nagano called Red Alarm's stereoscopic visuals "amazing", and Sawada Noda recommended the game to all owners of the Virtual Boy.

[15] The reviewer for Next Generation saw significant promise in Red Alarm, and believed that its elements should add up to "a fantastic game"; but the writer panned the final product as a wasted opportunity.

wrote, "On the one hand, it's a pretty impressive 3D spacey shoot-em-up, with a real grip on the Virtual world and all those fancy techniques, and on the other it's an often visually confusing, headache-inducing attempt at being something it's quite obviously not.

[5] The following year, Damien McFerran of Retro Gamer summarized Red Alarm as "pretty good fun to play", although inferior to Star Fox.