The game involves obliterating a series of defenses orbiting a stationary turret in the center of the screen.

Skelly created a number of other Cinematronics vector games, including Starhawk, Armor Attack, and Rip Off.

If the player manages to hit the cannon, it explodes violently, collapsing the remnants of the shield rings, and an extra ship is awarded.

[2] In 1995, Flux magazine ranked Star Castle 83rd on their Top 100 Video Games list, calling it "one of the all-time great vector graphics classics".

[3] In an interview, Skelly admitted that the stellar field was made using the shape of a woman from a nude magazine.

[7] Anthony Weber of Stedek Software wrote a clone for Atari 8-bit computers called Star Island (1982).