Defeating all the aliens brings another wave which starts lower, a loop which can continue endlessly. 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.Īs aliens are defeated, their movement and the game's music both speed up. The aliens attempt to destroy the player's cannon by firing projectiles. While the player has three lives, the game ends immediately if the invaders reach the bottom of the screen. The goal is to eliminate all of the aliens by shooting them. 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. 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 player-controlled laser cannon shoots the aliens as they descend. More broadly, the pixelated enemy alien has become a pop culture icon, often representing video games as a whole. The 1980 Atari VCS version quadrupled sales of the VCS, thereby becoming the first killer app for video game consoles. It was the inspiration for numerous video games and game designers across different genres, and has been ported and re-released in various forms.

It helped expand the video game industry from a novelty to a global industry, and ushered in the golden age of arcade video games. Space Invaders is considered one of the most influential video games of all time. 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. 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). To complete development of the game, he had to design custom hardware and development tools. The goal is to defeat wave after wave of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser to earn as many points as possible.ĭesigner 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. Space Invaders was the first fixed shooter and set the template for the shoot 'em up genre. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed by the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution.

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado.

Galaxy attack alien shooter ships