Space Invaders

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Space Invaders (disambiguation).

Space Invaders
Fixed shooter
Mode(s)1–2 players alternating turns

Space Invaders

fixed shooter
and set the template for the genre. The goal is to defeat wave after wave of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser cannon to earn as many points as possible.

Designer

highest-grossing
entertainment product at the time, and the highest-grossing video game of all time.

Space Invaders is considered one of the most influential video games ever made, having ushered in the

killer app for video game consoles. More broadly, the pixelated enemy alien has become a pop culture
icon, often representing video games as a whole.

Gameplay

A vertical rectangular video game screenshot that is a digital representation of a battle between aliens and a laser cannon. The white aliens hover above four green, inverted U-shaped blocks. Below the blocks is a smaller horizontal block with a triangle on its top.
The player-controlled laser cannon shoots the aliens as they descend.

Space Invaders is a

laser cannon horizontally across the bottom of the screen and fires at aliens overhead. The aliens begin as five rows of eleven that move left and right as a group, shifting downward (advancing on the shooter) each time they reach a screen edge. The goal is to eliminate all of the aliens by shooting them. While the player has three lives, the game ends immediately if the invaders reach the bottom of the screen.[17][18][10][19] The aliens attempt to destroy the player's cannon by firing projectiles. The laser cannon is partially protected by stationary defense bunkers
which are gradually destroyed from the top by the aliens and, if the player fires when beneath one, the bottom gets destroyed.

As aliens are defeated, their movement and the music both speed up. Defeating all the aliens brings another wave which starts lower, a loop which can continue endlessly.[17][18][10][19] A special "mystery ship" will occasionally move across the top of the screen and award bonus points if destroyed.

Development

Space Invaders was developed by Japanese designer

shooting games.[20][21][22] The game uses a similar layout to that of Breakout but with different game mechanics; rather than bounce a ball to attack static objects, players are given the ability to fire projectiles at moving enemies.[23]

Nishikado added several interactive elements that he found lacking in earlier video games, such as the ability for enemies to react to the player's movement and fire back, and a game over triggered by the enemies killing the player (either by getting hit or enemies reaching the bottom of the screen) rather than simply a timer running out.[21] He replaced the timer, typical of arcade games at the time, with descending aliens who effectively served a similar function, where the closer they came, the less time the player had left.[22]

Early enemy designs included tanks, combat planes, and battleships.[20] Nishikado, however, was not satisfied with the enemy movements; technical limitations made it difficult to simulate flying.[20][24] Humans would have been easier to simulate, but the designer considered shooting them immoral.[24][25] After seeing the release of the 1974 anime Space Battleship Yamato in Japan,[26][27] and seeing a magazine feature about Star Wars (1977), he thought of using a space theme.[20][21] Nishikado drew inspiration for the aliens from a novel by H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, and created initial bitmap images after the octopus-like aliens.[20][21][24] Other alien designs were modeled after squids and crabs.[20][24] The game was originally titled Space Monsters after a popular song in Japan at the time, "Monster", but was changed to Space Invaders by the designer's superiors.[20][21]

Hardware

table arcade cabinet
Space Invaders arcade cabinet

Nishikado designed his own custom hardware and development tools for Space Invaders.

Western Gun, after the designer was impressed by the improved graphics and smoother animation of Midway's version.[30] Space Invaders also adopted the multi-chip barrel shifter circuit first developed by Midway for Gun Fight, which had been a key part of that game's smoother animation. This circuit allowed the 8080 CPU to shift pictures in the graphics framebuffer faster than it could using only its own native instructions.[31]

Despite the specially developed hardware, Nishikado was unable to program the game as he wanted—the Control Program board was not powerful enough to display the graphics in color or move the enemies faster—and considered the development of the hardware the most difficult part of the process.[20][24] While programming, Nishikado discovered that the processor was able to render each frame of the alien's animation graphics faster when there were fewer aliens on the screen. Since the alien's positions updated after each frame, this caused the aliens to move across the screen at an increasing speed as more and more were destroyed. Rather than design a compensation for the speed increase, he decided that it was a feature, not a bug, and kept it as a challenging gameplay mechanism.[21]

Taito released Space Invaders in July 1978.

semi-transparent mirror, behind which is mounted a plastic cutout of a moon bolted against a painted starry background. The backdrop is visible through the mirror and thus appears "behind" the graphics.[10] Both Taito's and Midway's first Space Invaders versions had black-and-white graphics with a transparent colored overlay using strips of orange and green cellophane over certain portions of the screen to add color to the image. Later Japanese releases used a rainbow-colored cellophane overlay,[10] and these were eventually followed by versions with a color monitor and an electronically generated color overlay.[10]

Music

Space Invaders music
The game's signature looping four-note bassline, as heard during gameplay
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Despite its simplicity, the music to Space Invaders was revolutionary for the gaming industry of the time. Video game scholar Andrew Schartmann identifies three aspects of the music that had a significant impact on the development of game music:

  1. Whereas video game music prior to Space Invaders was restricted to the extremities (i.e., a short introductory theme with game-over counterpart), the alien-inspired hit featured continuous music — the well-known four-note loop, consisting of the first four notes of the descending D
    minor natural scale — throughout, uninterrupted by sound effects: "It was thus the first time that sound effects and music were superimposed to form a rich sonic landscape. Not only do players receive feedback related directly to their actions through sound effects; they also receive stimulus in a more subtle, non-interactive fashion through music."[32]
  2. The music interacts with on-screen animation to influence the emotions of the player: "That seemingly pedestrian four-note loop might stir us in the most primitive of ways, but that it stirs us at all is worthy of note. By demonstrating that game sound could be more than a simple tune to fill the silence, Space Invaders moved video game music closer to the realm of art."[32]
  3. The music for Space Invaders popularized the notion of variability—the idea that music can change in accordance with the ongoing on-screen narrative. The variable in Space Invaders, the tempo, is admittedly simple, but its implications are not to be underestimated. "Over the years, analogous strategies of variation would be applied to pitch, rhythm, dynamics, form, and a host of other parameters, all with the goal of accommodating the nonlinear aspect of video games."[32]

At the deepest of conceptual levels, one would be hard-pressed to find an arcade game as influential to the early history of video game music as Space Invaders. Its role as a harbinger of the fundamental techniques that would come to shape the industry remains more or less unchallenged. And its blockbuster success ensured the adoption of those innovations by the industry at large.

— Andrew Schartmann, Thought Catalog (2013)

Next Generation editor Neil West also cited the Space Invaders music as an example of great video game art, commenting on how the simple melody's increasing tempo and synchronization with the enemies' movement chills and excites the player.[33]

Reception and versions

Arcade version

Space Invaders initially received mixed responses from within Taito and

video arcades opened with nothing but Space Invaders cabinets.[20][25]

By the end of 1978, Taito had installed over 100,000 machines and grossed $670 million ($3.1 billion adjusted for inflation) in Japan alone.[9][42] By June 1979, Taito had manufactured about 200,000–300,000 Space Invaders machines in Japan, with each unit earning an average of ¥10,000 or $46 (equivalent to $193 in 2023) in 100 yen coins per day. However, this was not enough to meet the high demand, leading to Taito increasing production to 25,000–30,000 units per month and raising projections to 400,000 manufactured in Japan by the end of 1979.[5] In order to cope with the demand, Taito licensed the overseas rights to Midway for distribution outside of Japan. By the end of 1979, an estimated 750,000 Space Invaders machines were installed worldwide, including 400,000 in Japan, 85,000 in the United Kingdom,[6] and 60,000 within a year in the United States[43][44][45] (where prices ranged from $2,000 to $3,000 for each machine);[46] the game eventually sold 72,000 units in the United States by 1982.[47] By 1979, it had become the arcade game industry's all-time best-seller.[48]

Space Invaders had about 8 million

grossed $3.8 billion, equivalent to over $13 billion as of 2016.[16] Space Invaders earned Taito profits of over $500,000,000 (equivalent to $2,300,000,000 in 2023).[20][56]

Home versions

Further information: Space Invaders (Atari 2600 video game)

The 1980 Atari VCS (Atari 2600) version was the first official licensing of an arcade game for consoles and became the first "killer app" for video game consoles after quadrupling the system's sales.[10][57] It sold over one million units in its first year on sale as a home console game, then over 4.2 million copies by the end of 1981, and over 5.6 million by 1982; it was the best-selling Atari 2600 game up until the Atari version of Pac-Man (1982).[58] Space Invaders for the Atari 2600 had sold 6,091,178 cartridges by 1983,[58] and a further 161,051 between 1986 and 1990,[59] for a total of over 6.25 million cartridges sold by 1990.

Other official

pocket calculators.[9] The Atari VCS conversion was programmed by Richard Maurer,[60] while the Atari 5200 conversion was programmed by Eric Manghise and animated by Marilyn Churchill.[61]

More than a hundred Space Invaders

Super Invader (1979)[63] and TI Invaders (1981); the latter was the top-selling game for the TI-99/4A through at least 1982.[64]

Legacy

As one of the earliest

dynamic and changed pace during stages,[72] like a heartbeat sound that increases pace as enemies approached.[73]

An urban legend states that Space Invaders' popularity led to a shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan.[20][67][74] However, Nishikado himself was skeptical of the story.[41] In reality, 100-yen coin production was lower in 1978 and 1979 than in previous or subsequent years.[75][76] Additionally, arcade operators would have regularly emptied their machines and taken the coins to the bank, thus keeping them in circulation.[76] Reports from those living in Japan at the time indicate "nothing out of the ordinary ... during the height of the Space Invaders invasion".[76]

Space Invaders was inducted into the

cocktail and cabaret versions being the rarest.[78]

Impact

Defender, Robotron: 2084) to become a video game designer, stating it "laid the groundwork for a whole generation" of video games with the "animated characters, the story, this amazing crescendo of action and climax"[85] and that many games "still rely on the multiple life, progressively difficult level paradigm" of Space Invaders.[86] Deus Ex creator Warren Spector said: "Space Invaders and games like it represent the roots of everything we see today in gaming. It represents the birth of a new art form, one that literally changed the world. Space Invaders is important as an historical artefact, no less than the silent films of the early twentieth century or early printed books."[87]

arcade machine's owner could earn back the cost of the machine in under one month, or in some places within one week.[45]

Space Invaders helped action games become the dominant

health.[73]

The

1UP.com stated that Space Invaders showed that video games could compete against the major entertainment media at the time: films, music, and television.[25] IGN attributed the launch of the "arcade phenomenon" in North America in part to Space Invaders.[90] Electronic Games said it was the impetus behind video gaming becoming a rapidly growing hobby, and as "the single most popular coin-operated attraction of all time."[101] Game Informer considered it, along with Pac-Man, one of the most popular arcade games; it tapped into popular culture and generated excitement during the golden age of arcades.[102]

Rankings

In 1995, Flux magazine ranked Space Invaders #1 on their "Top 100 Video Games".[103] In 1996, Next Generation magazine put Space Invaders at number 97 on their list of the "Top 100 Games of All Time", saying that it "provides an elegance and simplicity not found in later games like Phoenix [1980]."[104] IGN listed it as one of the "Top 10 Most Influential Games" in 2007, citing it as a source of inspiration to video game designers and the impact it had on the shooting genre.[65] The Times ranked it No. 1 on its list of "The ten most influential video games ever" in 2007.[40] 1UP ranked it at No. 3 on its list of "The 60 Most Influential Games of All Time", stating that, in contrast to earlier arcade games which "were attempts to simulate already-existing things," Space Invaders was "the first video game as a video game, instead of merely a playable electronic representation of something else."[105]

In 2008, Guinness World Records listed it as the top-rated arcade game in technical, creative, and cultural impact.[18] Entertainment Weekly named Space Invaders one of the top ten games for the Atari 2600 home console in 2013.[106] In 2018, it was ranked 87th in Video Game Canon's statistical meta-analysis of 48 "top games" lists published between 1995 and 2017.[107] The list aggregator site Playthatgame currently ranks Space Invaders as the 57th top game of all time, game of the year, & game of the 1970s.[108] In 2021, The Guardian listed it as the third-greatest video game of the 1970s, just below Galaxian and Asteroids.[109]

Remakes and sequels

Main article: List of Space Invaders video games
Release timeline
1978Space Invaders
1979Space Invaders Part II
1980Space Invaders II
1981–1983
1984Return of the Invaders
1985–1989
1990Majestic Twelve: The Space Invaders Part IV
Mininvaders
Space Invaders: Fukkatsu no Hi
Space Invaders 90
1991–1992
1993Space Invaders DX
1994
1995Space Invaders '95: The Attack of Lunar Loonies
PD Ultraman Invaders
1996–1998
1999Space Invaders X
2000–2001
2002Space Invaders EX
Space Raiders
2003–2004
2005Space Invaders Revolution
Space Invaders Evolution
Space Invaders × Pac-Man
2006Yawaraka Sensha vs Space Invaders
2007Space Invaders Pinball
Minna de Invaders
2008Space Invaders CX
Space Invaders The Beat Attacker
Space Invaders Get Even
Space Invaders Extreme
Space Invaders World War
2009Space Invaders Extreme 2
Space Invaders Infinity Gene
2010–2016
2017Space Invaders Frenzy
Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders
2018Space Invaders Gigamax
2019
2020Space Invaders Counter Attack
2021Space Invaders: Hidden Heroes
2022
2023Space Invaders: World Defense

Space Invaders has been remade on numerous platforms and spawned many sequels. Re-releases include

spin-off for WiiWare, Space Invaders Get Even, allows players to control the aliens instead of the laser cannon in a reversal of roles.[112]

In 1980, Bally released a pinball version. However, few elements from the original game are included, and the aliens instead resemble the xenomorphs from the film Alien; Bally was later sued over the resemblance to the designs by H. R. Giger.[113] It became the third highest-grossing pinball machine of 1980 in the United States.[114]

clone
in 1980 that could be played at home: the Epoch TV Vader.

Ports have received mixed reviews; the Atari 2600 version was successful, while the Nintendo Entertainment System version was poorly received.[10]

Space Invaders '95. Each game introduced minor gameplay additions to the original design. Like the original game, several of the arcade sequels have become collector's items, though some are considered rarer.[78] In 2002, Taito released Space Raiders, a third-person shooter reminiscent of Space Invaders.[119][120]

Space Invaders Frenzy machine

Space Invaders and its related games have been included in

Space Invaders Pocket, was released in 2005.[122] Space Invaders, Space Invaders Part II and Return of the Invaders are included in Taito Legends, a compilation of Taito's classic arcade games released in 2005 on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC.[123][124] Super Space Invaders '91, Space Invaders DX, and Space Invaders '95 were included in Taito Legends 2, a sequel compilation released in 2006.[125]

A stand-alone version was released by Super Impulse as part of its Tiny Arcade series, along with the Namco games Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Galaxian.[126]

A Space Invaders game for the

Virtuality Entertainment, which would have featured support for the unreleased Jaguar VR peripheral; however, the project never entered full development beyond reaching pre-production stages, with the only remaining proof of its existence being a game design document.[127][128]

In popular culture

Many publications and websites use the pixelated alien graphic as an icon for video games in general, including the video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly, technology website Ars Technica, and concert event Video Games Live.[25] There has also been Space Invaders-themed merchandising, including necklaces and puzzles.[129] The trend continues to this day, with handmade sites like Etsy and Pinterest showcasing thousands of handmade items featuring Space Invaders characters.

A photograph of an orchestra on a dimly lit stage. Above the group is a projection screen with a black, white, and green image of pixel art. The pixel art is an oval object wearing headphones with eyes and four tentacles. Below the pixel art is the phrase "Video Games Live".
A pixelated alien graphic from Space Invaders used at the Video Games Live concert event

Space Invaders has appeared in numerous facets of

electronic sports (eSports) event, and attracted more than 10,000 participants, establishing video gaming as a mainstream hobby.[92] The Arcade Awards ceremony was created that same year to honor the best video games, with Space Invaders winning the first Game of the Year (GoTY) award.[38] The impact of Space Invaders on the video game industry has been compared to that of The Beatles in the pop music industry.[131] Considered "the first 'blockbuster' video game", Space Invaders became synonymous with video games worldwide for some time.[132]

Within a year of its release, the Japanese

Socialist beliefs in restriction and control". A motion to bring the bill before Parliament was defeated by 114 votes to 94 votes; the bill itself was never considered by Parliament.[135][136][137] Similarly in the United States, in Westchester County, New York, there was a controversial political debate in 1981 over a resolution to place age restrictions on Space Invaders and other arcade games, following complaints that schoolchildren wasted time and lunch money, and went to school late; the resolution drew national attention.[138]

Music

Musicians have drawn inspiration for their music from Space Invaders. The pioneering

Player One (known in the US as "Playback"),[142] which in turn provided the bassline for Jesse Saunders' "On and On" (1984),[143][144] the first Chicago house music track.[145] The Clash sampled Space Invaders sound effects on the song "Ivan Meets G.I. Joe" from its 4th studio album, Sandinista!

Video Games Live performed audio from Space Invaders as part of a special retro "Classic Arcade Medley" in 2007.[146] In honor of the game's 30th anniversary, Taito produced an album, Space Invaders 2008. It was released by Avex Trax and features music inspired by the game. Six songs were originally used in the PSP version of Space Invaders Extreme.[147] Taito's store, Taito Station, also unveiled a Space Invaders-themed music video.[148]

Television and film

In the 1982 pilot of the series

television series have aired episodes that either reference or parody Space Invaders; for example, Danger Mouse,[149] That '70s Show,[150] Scrubs,[151] Chuck,[152] Robot Chicken,[153] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles[154] and The Amazing World of Gumball.[155] Elements are prominently featured in the "Raiders of the Lost Arcade" segment of "Anthology of Interest II", an episode of the animated series Futurama.[156][157]

Space Invaders also appears in the films

Safehouse Pictures partners Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell.[161]

Books

Various books have been published about Space Invaders, including Invasion of the Space Invaders: An Addict's Guide to Battle Tactics, Big Scores and the Best Machines (1982) by Martin Amis,[162] Tomb Raiders and Space Invaders: Videogame forms and Contexts (2006) by Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska,[163] and Space Invaders (1980) by Mark Roeder and Julian Wolanski.[164]

Miscellaneous

A spaceship aiming at the Puma logo, with clear references to Space Invaders

In the mid-1990s, the athletics company Puma released a T-shirt with a stamp having references to Space Invaders, i.e. a spaceship aiming at the company's logo (see picture on the right).

In 2006, Space Invaders was one of several video game-related media selected to represent Japan as part of a project compiled by

Game On exhibition.[168]

At the Belluard Bollwerk International 2006 festival in Fribourg, Switzerland, Guillaume Reymond created a three-minute video recreation of a game of Space Invaders as part of the "Gameover" project using humans as pixels.[169] The GH ART exhibit at the 2008 Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, included an art game, Invaders!, based on Space Invaders's gameplay. The creator later asked for it to be removed from the exhibit following criticism of elements based on the September 11 attacks in the United States.[170]

A bridge in Cáceres, Spain, projected by engineers Pedro Plasencia and Hadrián Arias, features a pavement design based on Space Invaders. The laser cannon, some shots, and several figures can be seen on the deck.[171] A French street artist, Invader, made a name for himself by creating mosaic artwork of Space Invader aliens around the world.[25][172]

In 2014, two Brazilian

Taito is named for the company that produces Space Invaders.[173]

In 2018,

Highways England launched a campaign titled "Don't be a Space Invader, Stay Safe, Stay Back" to raise awareness on the dangers of tailgating. People were also able to order free car bumper stickers to raise awareness of the campaign.[174]

Notes

  1. ^ Space Invaders was first published on April 1, 1978,[3] before entering mass-production in July 1978.[4][5]
  2. ^ Japanese: スペースインベーダー, Hepburn: Supēsu Inbēdā

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Further reading

External links

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