Space Invaders

“The Space Invader” (October 17, 2013) archived article by Simon Parkin in the New Yorker tells how the legendary Space Invaders game was invented in 1978 by Tomohiro Nishikado. The game is about shooting aliens as they move across the screen. The 1976 Atari video game Break Out, the 1897 HG Wells book The War of the Worlds, and the 1977 movie Star Wars influenced Nishikado in making the game. Designing and coding the game was one thing, but playing it was something else! Per his account, the game designer sucked at playing his own game. He could not even pass level one, but he put the players’ needs first over his own to make the game easy to learn but competitive. During development, he had difficulties with the existing electronic hardware, so he built his own. He was also first rejected by his management in making the game but then got promoted when the game became a best seller. Yet he found himself dissatisfied with himself as he found himself focusing solely on managing others and no longer doing any more coding himself. Space Invaders became the game that invaded all video gaming households and inspired all future action games such as Doom, which inspired all modern-day action games.