Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
14
Dish: Making the
Game
Interstellar
Paranoids
In 1978, a game came along from a company named Taito that would change the face
of video gaming forever. Designer Tomohiro Nishikado said that his inspiration came
from Atari's arcade game,
Breakout
, and his concept was so advanced that Nishikado,
a solo developer, had to develop the necessary hardware himself. He named it
Space
Monsters
, but a superior of his changed the name before it was released, to
Space
Invaders
.
By the end of 1978, Taito had installed over 100,000 arcade machines and grossed
over $600 million in Japan alone.* The game was soon a hit right across the world, and
now, 35 years on, players still get to enjoy numerous remakes, clones, and arcade-style
games that pay homage to it.
A year on, in 1979, a new video game named
Galaxian
was launched by Namco. It was
designed by Kazunori Sawano; unlike Nishikado, Sawano had a small team to work with,
and they were able to accomplish much more technically that would help them to build
on the original
Space Invaders
concepts. This time around, the enemy sprites had bright
colored graphics, animations, and a scrolling starfield. Audio was much improved now,
too, with the addition of background music and a theme.
Galaxian
saw the alien invaders
swooping down at the player, attacking much more aggressively than
Space Invaders
, mak-
ing for a faster-paced, more visceral experience.
* “Can Asteroids Conquer Space Invaders?”
Electronic Games
, Winter 1981, 30-33 (http://www.digitpress.
com/library/magazines/electronic_games/electronic_games_winter81.pdf).
