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PC-8801 · 1986

Alpha

BEHIND THE TITLE SCREEN

History of Alpha

The Game Preservation Society’s PC-88 library lists Alpha as a Square adventure from July 1986 for the PC-8801 and later models. [1]

Its science-fiction story unfolds aboard the generation ship Daedalus, centuries into a distant voyage. Chris, a young woman with no memory of her past, becomes caught up in the ship’s mysteries. [1]

Project EGG’s 2013 Classic PC-Game Collection includes both PC-8801 and PC-9801 editions. The rerelease is part of the game’s publication history, not evidence of an English localization. [2]

MAME catalogs the PC-8801 release, an alternate disk image and a separate demo. These entries must not be treated as interchangeable patch inputs; our exact source revision has not been selected or verified. [3]

Contemporary advertising identifies a PC-8801-series edition and credits Square. The reference page provides manual excerpts for commands, saving and screen layout; its recreated package sticker is explicitly speculative and is not used as original evidence. [4] [5]

Historical PC-8801 edition documented; full original staff credits remain incomplete. The advertised platform family and reproduced manual guidance do not certify a future patch’s source revision, emulator or hardware compatibility. The PC-9801 edition remains separate.

Original year
1986
Platform of interest
PC-8801
Genre
Adventure
Work
English localization

THE PEOPLE & THE PAPER TRAIL

Credits where they belong.

Original game

Original company / cataloged publisher
Square [1] [3]
Package design (contemporary advertisement)
Mutsumi Inomata / いのまたむつみ [5]
Package illustration (contemporary advertisement)
Shigenori Kageyama / 影山楙倫 [5]

Additional original staff credits are still being researched.

Patch Quest project

Website & platform maintenance
BrentW

Platform or website maintenance is not a claim of original-game authorship or translation review.

Read the sources

  1. Game Preservation Society: July 1986 PC-88 library (Japanese)
  2. Project EGG: official Classic PC-Game Collection listing (reviewed 2026-10-18)
  3. MAME maintainers: PC-8801 floppy software catalog (reviewed 2026-10-18)
  4. Alpha: manual excerpts and contemporary source reproductions, Retro PC GAME MUSIC (reviewed 2026-10-18)
  5. Original Alpha magazine advertisement reproduced by Retro PC GAME MUSIC (reviewed 2026-10-18)

Title screen supplied by the maintainer; public website use approved. Original game artwork is not Patch Quest artwork.