Space Invaders (MB Hall of Fame Inductee)

Hall of Fame Inductee
Space Invaders
Original Release: 1978 (Arcade)
Developer: Taito
Publisher: Midway

In 2009 going into 2010, many younger gamers only know Space Invaders through the excellent portable remake call Space Invaders Extreme or through stories they’ve heard from those who remember when video games only consisted of a single frame. If Pong got people interested in video games, Space Invaders got them hooked. Taito and Midway had no idea what they were releasing upon the world in 1978. They released something almost as addictive as cigarettes and many people saw their pocket change disappear in the blink of an eye.

What looks and even plays like a simple concept, it took one man a year to create. Tomohiro Nishikado wanted to conjure up a captivating experience. Nishikado had some ambitious ideas; many of which were either not possible due to technical limitations or because he did not feel would work with the final product. He had a dream about schoolchildren being attacked by aliens while waiting for Santa and tried combining that gruesome thought with other games that he had enjoyed playing. A large source of inspiration came from Breakout (which saw its creation built from the foundation of Pong). However, Nishikado wanted to use missiles instead of a ball to defeat enemies.

Early mock-ups of the game involved a whole host of enemies. Most of these enemies were more terrestrial in nature: from tanks to planes. Nishikado was apprehensive using characters that were either piloted by humans or even humans themselves as the enemy. He felt it would have been morally wrong for the player to be shooting at other humans. He decided upon keeping with an alien motif which stayed away from the moral dilemmas he was dealing with. The aliens were designed after some of the depictions used in H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds. Although by today’s standards, they look kind of cute and make for great retro t-shirts, these tiny sprites looked like pure evil conjured up by a deceptive machine.

Nishikado had some creative ideas for how Space Invaders was supposed to look but this is 1978 we’re talking about and things that seem basic by today’s standards, like colour, seemed to be tricky obstacles. Taito had to use specially modified hardware due to the fact that most of the standard circuit boards were not capable to handle what the company desired. But Nishikado was a more than competent developer and designer and was able to pull some interesting tricks to achieve some of the results he desired. Despite still being limited by the lack of colour, some of the cabinets had strips of colour cellophane to illustrate colour graphics. He also would have liked the game to have moved faster but it probably worked to Taito’s advantage because the slower pace at the beginning invites the player in and as the game gets more difficult with more aggressive enemies at each subsequent level, the player still feels they have a fighting chance and are more likely to spend more money on a game that they feel they can progress farther with each attempt.

Space Invaders was more than a runaway success. It could be considered a nightmare for the Japanese economy. The game was so wildly popular that there were coin shortages throughout the country. Arcades opened up throughout the country that had Space Invaders as the only game available. In North America and elsewhere around the world, Space Invaders quickly became the top game in arcades and quickly took its place as being the machine of choice for many establishment owners. From bars to the corner pizza parlour, people lined up to shoot a bunch of generic looking aliens into oblivion.

And while Space Invaders had many games borrow from it such as Galaxian, Taito continued to modify the game through later releases and ports. The 1980 release for the home market on the Atari 2600 was an instant bestseller. Taito also released new versions of the game in various forms in the arcade market offering real colour (instead of the cellophane integrated into the screen) and other gameplay upgrades. The game has also remained popular throughout the years through the home market. The Super Nintendo was graced with a version of the game which sold very well despite it not being as solid graphically as other games available for the system at the time. There have been other versions released on systems like Sony’s Playstation and the Nintendo Wii but it has actually regained a strong cult following with Space Invaders Extreme which offers multiple levels, colourful graphical techniques, and immersive techno-beat music. Space Invaders Extreme offered gameplay that offered the simplicity of the original game with many of the concepts that keep people’s attention of the flashier shooters of the latter end of the 00s.

But Space Invaders not only created a strong following and a series of popular sequels. It also got some notable people interested into making video games. Probably the most famous game designer in the world, Shigeru Miyamoto, who created Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, and many other famous franchises for Nintendo, has credited Space Invaders throughout multiple interviews as the inspiration for him to get involved with creating video games. In fact, prior to playing Space Invaders, Miyamoto had absolutely no interest in video games at all.

Space Invaders proved that aliens could take over the world. The game not only became synonymous with gaming but also helped create a generation of gamers and game designers. Space Invaders is one of those games that we could never imagine never having existed. It’s not only a vital part of video game history but also has created a cultural legacy that will remain until the real aliens take over the planet.