Control of Space Invaders and Other Electronic Games". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). House of Commons. May 20, 1981. col.287–291. Brian Ashcraft (January 20, 2010). "How Cover Shaped Gaming's Last Decade". Kotaku . Retrieved March 26, 2011.

a b c Schartmann, Andrew. Maestro Mario: How Nintendo Transformed Videogame Music into an Art. New York: Thought Catalog, 2013. Grace, Lindsay (June 19, 2018). "The Original 'Space Invaders' Is a Meditation on 1970s America's Deepest Fears". Smithsonian Magazine . Retrieved April 22, 2021. As a game designer and teacher of games, I know how meaning is carried from designer to the mechanics of play. As a game studies researcher, I also know how games reveal myth, meaning and culture.

Play Another Game

Fairey, Shepard. "Space Invader". Swindle Magazine. Archived from the original on March 16, 2008 . Retrieved May 6, 2008.

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. [20] [21] [13] [22] 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 gets destroyed. But, like playing “Space Invaders” itself, the joy comes in interacting with that change, mastering it and moving on to the next level.

a b Hansen, Dusty (2016). Game On! Video Game History From Pong and Pac-Man to Mario, Minecraft and More. MacMillan Publishing Group, LLC. p.11. ISBN 978-1-250-08095-0. Space Invaders Set for WiiWare". IGN. June 17, 2008. Archived from the original on May 16, 2009 . Retrieved August 19, 2008. More than a hundred Space Invaders video game clones were released for various platforms, [71] such as the popular computer games Super Invader (1979) [72] and TI Invaders (1981); the latter was the top-selling game for the TI-99/4A through at least 1982. [73] Legacy [ edit ] a b c Shibata, Yoko (June 28, 1979). "Electronic Games: Japan converts its Pachinko parlours". Financial Times. Karen Collins (2008). From Pac-Man to pop music: interactive audio in games and new media. Ashgate. p.2. ISBN 978-0-7546-6200-6 . Retrieved April 8, 2011.

Space Invaders is considered one of the most influential video games of all time. It 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. Obsessions (December 18, 2013). "This Game Industry Pioneer Never Gave Up on the Video Arcade". WIRED . Retrieved September 15, 2016.Lovelace, Craven (August 27, 2010). "Take a waka-waka-waka on the wild side". Grand Junction Free Press. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011 . Retrieved July 15, 2011.