Space Invaders creator reveals game’s origin story | Hacker News Reader

Space Invaders creator reveals game’s origin story

wired.com

131 pointsbookofjoe29 comments

This is so badly written. Seems to exist mostly to plug that mini cabinet.

Here's a much better one from 10 years ago: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-spac...

It's fine that you like that other article better, but there's nothing "so badly written" about this newer one (what a vapid, lazy critique). Every bit of history that can be recorded from someone like Tomohiro Nishikado, even if it's not that much, matters.

The article here is an ad. I guess it's not a badly written advertisement, but it still reads as an advertisement which isn't exactly a desirable trait in an article.

Nishikado has been interviewed dozens of not hundreds of times about this same topic since the 90s. There’s nothing new in this article, it’s missing a lot that’s in most others, plus it’s at least half ad.

It's the first one I've seen, and I was happy to find it here.

https://archive.ph/UoHzG

Odd that the screenshot in the article isn't of the actual arcade game but rather the Atari 2600 port (which is granted a quite good port given the limitations of the 2600), but still.

Thank you for identifying that. I felt a bunch of things were off in that screenshot. For one, I don't remember those colors. But I didn't trust my memory.

But more importantly, since the article went on to describe the "octopus" and other aliens in some detail, I was looking at that picture trying to see those details. None of those aliens were quite as I remembered them. That Atari 2600 picture really doesn't do justice to what the article goes into detail about.

There was color but it was achieved via tinted cellophane tape. (though I do remember playing pure black and white versions as well) Later, there were 'real' color versions in arcades but I don't recall if it was a later iteration of the hardware or a knock-off.

Indeed. And it's not hard to find screenshots of the actual game since Space Invaders is a very popular project for people interested in emulation:

https://github.com/cbeust/space-invade.rs

I still think the most interesting thing is that the game doesn’t intentionally speed up aliens, the game just runs faster when there’s fewer aliens.

The frame rate stays the same (e.g. the player always moves the same speed). It's more that only one invader gets moved on each frame. So the fewer invaders there are, the more they get moved. It's deliberate.

I guess they weren't doing a whole-screen-refresh (with double buffer) in those days, just turning pixels on and off to move the objects. So then there's a limit to how many objects can move per frame.

E.g. the player moves by blanking our pixels on one side and adding them on the other...

There's no code which controls the aliens' speed; that doesn't mean it wasn't intentional.

There is some code that controls the speed when there is a single alien left it moves faster right to left see the code at 00C2 in http://computerarcheology.com/Arcade/SpaceInvaders/Code.html

But basically one alien moves every video frame.

It was intentionally decided that "it's not a bug, it's a feature!"

"We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents."

- Bob Ross

"When you hit a blood vessel don't say 'Oops,' say 'There.'" —attending surgeon to resident

This is true: I was holding a retractor on the other side of the operating table.

I'm just a little sick of this getting trotted out as a factoid when it's patently ridiculous, like they never noticed it or that compensating for it in some way was impossible. There are actual unintentional mechanics like the Nagoya Shot, unexpected technical skills like the rainbow finish, or one of the earliest examples of RNG manipulation for UFO control, that are much more interesting to talk about.

You could share the cool things you are interested in without hating on the things other people think are interesting, though. I'm not familiar with any of the techniques you mentioned and would be curious to hear - sharing them would broaden and enrich the discussion. I can understand having a pet peeve, but that's a matter of your preferences - not something anyone else did wrong. Additionally I think it's founded in a misunderstanding - we all get it that the designer left it in on purpose, that's why we think it's cool.

There's an important game design lesson in one of the defining features of this game being an artefact of the hardware that the game designer accidentally bumped into. That's fascinating. And happy accidents like that are still an important part of game design today.

It was not intentionally designed. It was intentionally left in. The first statement is what is cool.

As a young kid, briefly seeing Space Invaders (a table version, in a hotel lobby), was what made me want to get access to a computer, so I could make things like that.

Sometime later, I drew a picture of what the screen of "my game" would look like, once I got a computer. It was two-player game that (in hindsight) I realize was obviously a combination of Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Pong. Not super-creative, though I still think it'd be very playable.

By the time I got a computer and programming tools capable of making my game, I was busy trying to make money, so the schedule for my game has slipped a bit.

You should make it!

As I recall, Space Invaders was the first hit video game. It's really what introduced us kids to video games. However, it was pretty quickly replaced by Asteroids, which was much more exciting. There were a handful of other games, but those were the two big ones. Then, Pac-Man hit the arcade and everything changed. We all forgot about Space Invaders and Asteroids after Pac-Man.

Slightly offtopic: French guerilla artist invading the world with iconic graphics from the game:

https://space-invaders.com/world/

Yes and no: despite the very visible inspiration it's rather NOT coming from the game anymore, as stated in the https://space-invaders.com/about/ section:

  This said, my initial source of inspiration was the Space Invaders and a few other video games but I have rapidly developed new models and created totally original icons.

I remember he also said before that was an effort to avoid any copyright infringement. Taito seems to be pretty nice with him though, which is not granted these days!

Hokuto Force made a nice C64 'edutainment demo' about Space Invaders for its 40th anniversary:

https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/c64.html?file=c64/space_in...

(only works on desktop because at one point you need to press a key to advance)

Apparently, adjusted by inflation it's the highest grossing entertainment product at $13 billion :o

Glad these people are being interviewed. NoClip (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0fDG3byEcMtbOqPMymDNbw) also talks to game developers / artists / and more.

It's calming and assuring to my intellectual / perfectionism streaks to read about Important People also having to make mistakes, and iterate in order to find a great solution.

No one seems to like this article. Why is it on the HN front page? Is there any way to down vote?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com