Space Invaders

Space Invaders
Isometric Version of Alien in Second Row
Developer(s)	Taito Corporation
Publisher(s)	Midway
Designer(s)	Tomohiro Nishikado - Game Designer David Yuh - Programmer
Platform(s)	Arcade, Atari 2600
Release	1978
Genre(s)	Fixed Shooter
Mode(s)	Single player

Space Invaders (スペースインベーダー, Supēsu Inbēdā) is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978. It was originally manufactured by Taito and licensed for production in the U.S. by the Midway division of Bally. Initially released in its native Japan in 1978, it ranks as one of the most influential video games ever created. Though simplistic by today's standards, it was one of the forerunners of modern video gaming.

Gameplay

Inspired by Taito's earlier electromechanical machine Space Monsters and Tomohiro's interpretation of alien descriptions in The War of the Worlds, the game itself resembled an adaptation of the two. In this video game version of the game, the player controlled the motions of a movable laser cannon that moved back and forth across the bottom of the video screen. Rows and rows of video aliens marched back and forth across the screen, slowly advancing down from the top to the bottom of the screen. If any of the aliens successfully landed on the bottom of the screen, the game would end. Although the player's laser cannon had an unlimited supply of ammunition, it could only fire one shot at a time.

Meanwhile, the aliens would shoot back at the player, raining deadly rays and bombs that the player would have to dodge lest the cannon be destroyed. Players could also move the laser cannon under one of the shelter blocks, so that they could absorb the enemy shots until they are worn through. The player's cannon could be destroyed up to three times (the player had three lives), and the game would end after the player's last life was lost. Occasionally a bonus spaceship would fly across the top of the screen which the player could shoot for extra points.

As the player destroyed an increasing number of aliens, the aliens would begin marching faster and faster, with the lone remaining alien zooming rapidly across the screen. The player's cannon cannot be harmed by an invader firing a missile from the lowest line on the screen before the invader lands. Shooting the last alien in the formation rewarded the player with a new screen of aliens, which began their march one row lower than the previous round.

Development

Hardware

File:Inv D playfield.jpg

Mirrored holographic display and cardboard background of a Midway Space Invaders Deluxe arcade cabinet. Note the monitor on the bottom.

One key feature of Space Invaders was the fact that as more and more of the aliens were shot, the remaining aliens would move faster and faster. The change in speed was minor at the beginning of a wave, but dramatic near the end. This action was originally an unintentional result of the way the game was written - as the program had to move fewer and fewer aliens, it could update the display faster - but the development team decided to retain this feature rather than implementing busy waiting when there were few invaders on the screen.

Space Invaders used an Intel 8080 as its processor, running at 2 MHz. Graphics were implemented through a 1 bpp frame buffer mapped from the main CPU address space. All sound effects were implemented individually with discrete electronics.

In the upright version the actual output of the game was displayed mirror-image on a black and white monitor which sat recessed in the game's cabinet. The image was reflected on a plastic panel which the player saw. Behind the reflective panel was a lunar landscape which gave the game an impressive background setting. It is interesting to note that there were two major uprights. There was the original Taito upright which utilized joystick control, but most people in America are familiar with the Midway licensed version which used directional buttons and arguably had inferior artwork on its bezel, side art, and moon backgrounds.

File:Space Invaders cabinet at Lyme Regis.jpg

The Japanese version of the Space Invaders arcade cabinet. (Note Joystick)

Since the actual video game console itself had a monochrome video image, Taito added color by coating the reflective screen with colored bands. It should be noted however, that the very first version of the game in Japan ("T.T.", or "Table Top" Space Invaders) was a cocktail table with purely black and white graphics (i.e., no color overlay). There was also a version of the game in which the graphics were converted to actual RGB color.

Space Invaders had no hardware for the generation of random numbers, so the seemingly random point values awarded by the Flying Saucer actually utilized a hash function based on the number of shots that the player had fired in the current invasion wave. It did not take long for experimenters to determine that the maximum 300-point value could be achieved every time if the player shot the wave's first Flying Saucer on the 23rd shot, and subsequent Flying Saucers at 15-shot intervals thereafter.

Graphics design

In October 2005, Nishikado commented in an interview with English based video games magazine Edge that the look of the aliens had been based on the description of the alien invaders in H. G. Wells' classic science fiction story, The War of the Worlds: "In the story, the alien looked like an octopus. I drew a bitmap image based on the idea. Then I created several other aliens that look like sea creatures such as squid or crab." Nishikado also noted that his original intention in designing a shooting game had been to make the enemies airplanes, but that this had been too technically difficult to render. He was opposed to depicting the enemies as human beings (which would have been technically easier) as he believed the idea of depicting the shooting of humans to be morally wrong.

Reception

The enormous blockbuster success of Space Invaders made the entertainment industry sit up and take notice. Within the first year of its release, the game had generated revenue ranging in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In Japan, Space Invaders caused a coin shortage until the Yen supply was quadrupled. Additionally, when asked what the most revolutionary game was, Shigeru Miyamoto, cited Space Invaders, saying it sparked his interest in gaming.

Space Invaders became very popular in part due to its new style of game play. Up until its release, video games were timed to a clock, and once a player's time was up (plus possible bonus time), the game ended. With Space Invaders, the game ended only when the player had exhausted the three allotted "lives" or when the invaders landed on the bottom of the screen: a person could therefore play for as long as their skill level allowed.

Later releases

File:Space invaders gba screenshots.png

Screenshot of Space Invaders on the GBA. Top: normal mode; bottom: classic mode.

The home version of Space Invaders for the Atari 2600 was a huge success. It offered 112 different versions of the game. Variations included invisible invaders, invisible missiles and other subtle alterations. It was not the first video arcade adaptation for the Atari 2600 system (most of the early games for the 2600 were adaptations of early Atari video arcade games such as Breakout, Pong, Night Driver, etc.), but it was the first officially licensed arcade game for home conversion from one company to another (in this case, Taito to Atari.) The game was the breakthrough for the popularity for the Atari 2600. Other home console companies would make their own conversions of Space Invaders. Examples included Space Armada for the Intellivision, Alien Invaders — Plus! for the Odyssey 2 and TI Invaders for the TI-99/4A. But only Atari and Bally owned the rights to the use of the title Space Invaders. The console had been released in 1977, but sales of the 2600 skyrocketed during the 1980 holiday shopping season, as millions of families bought the Atari system just so that they could play Space Invaders. This marked the beginning of home video adaptations of popular arcade games. Space Invaders was also available for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers.

Space Invaders spawned a large number of imitators, as other video game manufacturers sought to cash in on its successful formula, and released many arcade games featuring variations of the same theme: attacking aliens from outer space. One such example was a game called Pepsi Invaders, made by Atari at the request of Coca-Cola for their Atlanta employees. Taito released several sequels to Space Invaders in the arcades over the years:

• Space Invaders Part II ("Space Invaders Deluxe") (1979)
• Return of the Invaders (1985)
• Majestic Twelve: The Space Invaders Part IV ("Super Space Invaders '91") (1990)
• Space Invaders DX (updated version of the 1978 original also featuring a 2-player versus mode, and a "parody" mode featuring various Taito characters from games released up to that point (1994)
• Akkan-vaders ("Space Invaders '95: The Attack Of The Lunar Loonies") (1995).

The release of Pac-Man in 1980 broke the mold of "alien invader" games, and it opened the way for more creativity and originality in the video gaming industry. But the legacy of Space Invaders lives on, and action-based science fiction games continue to pay homage to the original shoot-em-up video game.

Enemies based on Space Invaders also appeared in Bubble Bobble games. To top it off, Bubble Symphony featured both a giant Space Invader guarded by aliens who move just like in Space Invaders as a boss and cameo appearances by the player controlled spaceship as a companion for the main characters.

File:Pepsiinvaders.JPG

Screenshot of Pepsi Invaders, a parody of the game made by Atari at the request of Coca-Cola for the 2600.

Due to its high popularity, clones of Space Invaders were developed and published by other companies. Space Fever was one of the first Space Invaders clones ever made. It was developed and published by Nintendo. Unlike Space Invaders, Space Fever has three modes, and was released in monochrome and color.

Super Space Invaders was another Space Invaders clone for a range of systems including the Amiga, Master System and Game Gear featuring greatly upgraded graphics and sound, along with additions to the game play such as power-ups and advanced forms of aliens. Despite this, it was given average reviews at best, and sold very poorly.

In 1999, Activision released a 3-D remake of the game for the Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, Game Boy Color, and Windows PC; a Game Boy Advance version showed up in 2002. This remake features 3-D graphics, power-ups, and various enemies, as well as boss fights. One or two players can take on the Invaders, who march down the screen in orderly rows and columns, at one of three skill levels. Starting at the planet Pluto, players work their way through the Solar System to Mars, then Venus, and finally Earth. There are four common aliens (red, green, blue, and yellow), plus seven more less common ones. Players receive special one shot power-ups by shooting four of the same type of Invaders in a row. As in the original game, there are also Mother Ships that fly above the action, but in this version if they are hit them you can pick up other useful power-ups like shields or double shots. Plus, after fighting off several waves on each planet, you'll face a unique boss. Finish the game and a reproduction of the original coin-op will be unlocked.

Space Raiders (Space Invaders: Invasion Day in Europe) was released in 2001 and is a 3D version of space invaders. Rather than a laser at the bottom shooting up, the player is a human shooting forward at aliens in the street.

Space Invaders, Space Invaders Part II, and Return of the Invaders were re-released in October 2005 as part of Taito Legends for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC. The other three arcade Invader games, Space Invaders DX, Super Space Invaders '91 and Space Invaders '95: Attack of the Lunar Loonies were re-released in the Fall of 2006 as part of Taito Legends 2 for the same platforms.

In April 2007, Space Invaders Trilogy which includes the original arcade versions of Space Invaders, Space Invaders Part II, and Return of the Invaders was released for Pocket PC and Windows Smartphone.

A new and enhanced version called Space Invaders Extreme for the Playstation Portable and Nintendo DS was released February 2008 in Japan, the American release is due in June 2008.

Space Invaders in popular culture

Street art

An Invader mosaic seen in Avignon.

Space Invaders has also inspired a form of street art to a French artist known only by the pseudonym "Invader". Using ceramic tiles, Invader cements together mosaic images inspired of traditional Space Invaders aliens, bonus spaceships, and variations on those themes, sometimes including characters from the Pac-Man series, Super Mario series, and other video games. Most of the mosaics tiles are small and others are as large as murals. The mosaics are cemented onto building walls, lamp post bases, and other structures. The form has spread throughout the world since the 1990s, among more than 30 cities over 5 continents, Invader is still in activity. Some of the thousands of individual Invaders have been documented with photographs on Invader's website.

Music

At the time it was released, Space Invaders inspired a number of novelty songs by a number of different groups, including (but not limited to):

• In 1978, a punk group."Hostage" from the small Scottish town Campbeltown made a demo called "Space Invader Wizard" the lyrics tell what it is like to be a "Space Invaders" addict "Staring into the light trying to find yourself, but it's only a reflection of somebody else." Lyrics by Morris Shaw music by David and Fraser Shaw[1]
• A bubblegum dance band called Hit'N'Hide released a song called Space Invaders on their debut album On A Ride.
• In 1979, an obscure group of Australian performers calling themselves Player One released a song entitled "Space Invaders", using sound effects from the game. Player One put out an obscure album called Game Over, but the song can also be found on a few 1980s collections albums, including one of the period called Full Boar. It was also released as a 7" record in Australia only, backed with a second possibly-related song entitled "A Menacing Glow in the Sky".
• In 1980, a Cleveland, Ohio DJ named Victor Blecman (aka Uncle Vic) released another song entitled "Space Invaders", which likewise included sound effects from the game, ending with the lyrics speeding up faster and faster until the invaders "crash" down at the end. This song was only released as a single, and these days can mainly be found in novelty collections, for example Dr. Demento's album Dr. Demento's Mementos.
• In 1980, the American/British band The Pretenders recorded an instrumental track called "Space Invader" on their first album. The end of the song featured sounds of game play from the arcade game
• Also in 1980, British dance troupe Hot Gossip recorded a song entitled "Space Invaders" (once again, with sound effects from the game).

Space Invaders references continued to be found in music after the game was initially released. Notable songs include:

• In 1997, electro artist "I-F" released a song called "Space invaders are smoking grass" on the album Fucking Consumer. There exist a lot of remixes of this song, including one mix called "Space Invaders need a resolution" which is a mash up including Aaliyah's We Need a Resolution it was remixed by Leila Arab.
• In 2004, alternative rock band Trocadero released the song "Space Invader" on their debut album Roses are Red, Violets are Blue.
• Starting in 2005, the Video Games Live concert tour featured a logo depicting a pixelated Space Invader-style alien wearing audio headphones.

Other media

• The earliest incarnation of the game shown was in the 1982 anime Game Center Arashi broadcasted in Japan and Hong Kong.
• In the second game in the Bakushou!! Jinsei Gekijou series for the Famicom, playing a Space Invaders-type game is a way to improve will points that will improve the avatar's confidence in school tests and gaining admittance to university.
• An episode of Futurama features a parody scene where Fry proclaims himself a master of the game, claiming all he needs is a 2-liter bottle of Shasta, and his all-Rush mixtape. He then proceeds to drive a tank and shoots spaceships in the style of Space Invaders. He does this while listening to "Tom Sawyer" by Rush, which has the lyrics "Today’s Tom Sawyer/He gets high on you/And the space he invades/He gets by on you". He even performs the "crazy" maneuver of shooting through his own shield. Before the scene, Leela exclaims "Invaders! Possibly from space!" However, he missed the last one, and Lrr, commander of the alien legions, says, "Instead of shooting where I was, you should have shot where I was going to be!" as a reference to how the game was played.
• A game of Human Space Invaders featuring adults as the aliens, and children throwing water balloon lasers from the roof of a building, was played in a first season episode of the Nickelodeon game show Wild and Crazy Kids.
• In the concluding part of the "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" episode of The Simpsons, Groundskeeper Willie claims he was unable to fire a gun because of crippling arthritis in his fingers from "space invaders" in 1977 (one year before the game's release date). However, when prompted that it was a video game, Willie's reaction suggests that either it was actual space invaders that gave him his ailment, or that he was completely unaware that he was only playing a video game.
• In American gaming magazine EGM, an image of a Space Invader alien acts as a concluding pic in each of their articles, as well as symbolizing various reactions toward games shown at video game trade show E3.
• The Terry Pratchett book Only You Can Save Mankind takes place in a reality that is an amalgam of human computer games. In this reality the alien antagonists reveal that the Space Invaders are a once powerful, but now all but extinct species.
• In 2006 at the Belluard Bollwerk International 06 festival in Fribourg, Switzerland, Guillaume Reymond created a 3 minute video recreation of Space Invaders as part of the "Gameover" project using humans as pixels.
• An episode of "On The Moon" from Weebl's Stuff depicts space invaders wanting their butter back.
• In Season 2 of Danger Mouse "Custer Episode 3" Danger Mouse finds himself trying to escape space aliens. He soon find other hostile race that look and fight against him like Space Invaders. He kills all the Space Invader just like how the computer game does to find that he had won a free game. The free game puts a lead to Danger Mouse's escape by making the first hostile aliens fight against the Space Invaders.
• In a Robot Chicken-skit, two invaders bicker (in-game) about how their job is dangerous.
• In June 2007, the makers of a UK children's television show called The Secret Show, commissioned a Space Invaders clone with graphics replaced with images from the show, but the game play closely resembling the original, including the special mothership shooting bonuses at shot intervals. [2]

External links

• Template:StrategyWiki
• Space Invaders at the Killer List of Videogames
• Space Invaders at MobyGames
• Article at The Dot Eaters, featuring a history of Space Invaders
• AtariAge entry for Atari 2600 Space Invaders
• Watch a tip on how to play Space Invaders
• Space Invaders Article