Space Invaders Gameplay (Atari 2600)
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Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed by the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. Space Invaders was the first fixed shooter and set the template for the shoot 'em up genre. The goal is to defeat wave after wave of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser to earn as many points as possible.
Designer Nishikado drew inspiration from Breakout (1976), Gun Fight (1975), target shooting games, and science fiction narratives such as The War of the Worlds, Space Battleship Yamato and Star Wars. To complete development of the game, he had to design custom hardware and development tools. Upon release, Space Invaders was an immediate commercial success; by 1982, it had grossed $3.8 billion (equivalent to over $13 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2016), with a net profit of $450 million (equivalent to $2 billion adjusted for inflation). This made it the best-selling video game and 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 of all time. It helped expand the video game industry from a novelty to a global industry, and ushered in the golden age of arcade video games. It was the inspiration for numerous video games and game designers across different genres, and has been ported and re-released in various forms. The 1980 Atari VCS version quadrupled sales of the VCS, thereby becoming the first 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.
Space Invaders is a fixed shooter in which the player moves 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 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. 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.
As aliens are defeated, their movement and the game's music both speed up. Defeating all the aliens brings another wave which starts lower, a loop which can continue endlessly. A special "mystery ship" will occasionally move across the top of the screen and award bonus points if destroyed.
As one of the earliest shooting games, Space Invaders set precedents and helped pave the way for future titles and for the shooting genre. Space Invaders popularized a more interactive style of gameplay, with the enemies responding to the player-controlled cannon's movement, and was the first video game to popularize the concept of achieving a high score, being the first to save the player's score. While earlier shooting games allowed the player to shoot at targets, Space Invaders was the first in which multiple enemies could fire back at the player, and in contrast to earlier arcade games which often had a timer, Space Invaders introduced the "concept of going round after round." It was also the first game where players were given multiple lives, had to repel hordes of enemies, could take cover from enemy fire, and use destructible barriers, in addition to being the first game to use a continuous background soundtrack, with four simple diatonic descending bass notes repeating in a loop, which was dynamic and changed pace during stages, like a heartbeat sound that increases pace as enemies approached.
An urban legend states that Space Invaders' popularity led to a shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan. However, Nishikado himself was skeptical of the story. In actuality, 100-yen coin production was lower in 1978 and 1979 than in previous or subsequent years. Additionally, arcade operators would have emptied their machines and taken the money to the bank, thus keeping the coins in circulation. Reports from those living in Japan at the time indicate "nothing out of the ordinary ... during the height of the Space Invaders invasion".
Space Invaders was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame in 2016. Space Invaders cabinets have become collector's items, with the cocktail and cabaret versions being the rarest.
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