How Space Invaders Birthed Japanese Games

Design Icons is a new series from Game Maker's Toolkit, charting the history of game design through influential and important games. Starting with an invasion from space...

Sources

An Intro to Videogame Design History | The Game Design Forum

Creator of SPACE INVADERS talks about problems in development and more | EDAMAME Arcade Channel

Space Invaders at 40: 'I tried soldiers, but shooting people was frowned upon' | The Guardian

Tomohiro Nishikado And Hiroshi Aoki Reminisce On 'Space Invaders' And Its 'Extreme' Evolution | Forbes

Early Arcade Classics: 1985-1987 Developer Interviews | Shmuplations

Tomohiro Nishikado – 2000 Developer Interview | Shmuplations

The Space Invader | The New Yorker

Insert Coin to Play: Space Invaders and the 100 Yen Myth | The Numismatist

5 Things We Just Learned About ‘Mario’ Creator Shigeru Miyamoto | Rolling Stone

The Atari 2600 History Timeline | Histowiki

Taito Space Invaders Bezels, Backdrops and CPOs | Aussie Arcade

The National Space Invaders Championship held by Atari in 1980 | Reddit

Historia SNK | Cultura Neo Geo

Extra Footage

Atari Commercial

Stock Footage: Japan in the 70s

Stock Footage: Japan in the 1980s

Wedding Floss

[Rycluse]

1:58 Everyone knows putting a three letter swear word on the score board is the real purpose of high scores

[Nikkiflausch]

I'm super psyched about this new series! This is gonna be fun. Also, my favourite Space Invaders reboot is Radiant, which I own for macOS. It looks really great while keeping the feel of the original artstyle, it's got a cute, self-aware, funny story, it adds a small extra mechanic around different weapons, it's obviously longer with more variety in the levels, and it gets more challenging at the end too (which it needs to be at a longer playtime).

[ElChicoBush]

Excelent beginning for a series. I didn't know how important was Space Invaders in the videogame history.
Thanks for all your work, Mark.

[coffeedude]

This such a great idea for a series! You're one of the best channels on Youtube, even more so in the videogame side

[alekbabkin]

this is incredibly interesting to watch! Keep making it!

[tuck]

You’re editing style has always been good, but wow has it improved over the last 4 years. Amazing.

[yeoman]

I did a project in school about the creation and lasting legacy of Space Invaders! It's such an interesting story.

[mayordump]

Oh man, I love Dustforce’s OST. Recognized it immediately.

[TheEliteJohan]

The O of the logo not being completely even (or spinning off center) was mildly infuriating. Excellent idea and great video though :)

[Volvagia]

Initial six presented in the intro:

Space Invaders (arcade)
Pac-Man (arcade)
Super Mario Bros. (platformer)
Resident Evil (horror)
Metal Gear Solid (stealth)
Minecraft (survival)

Question: Are these six the entire series, or are other games on the docket? I don't know if I would guess too many more would be on the docket. Other than games you've already covered (Zelda, Metroid), I'd say a 15 game docket would cover basically everything. What would those other 9 games be?

Double Dragon
Doom
Ultima
X-Com
Final Fantasy IV
System Shock
Grand Theft Auto III
Devil May Cry
Limbo (Yeah, most modern puzzle platformers (Never Alone, the Unravel games, the Little Nightmares games and, of course, Playdead's own followup, Inside) essentially riff on this more than anything else. That's worth analysis.)

[CaseLogsTrades]

Never have i cought your video this early. Thank you for everything 😙😙😙😙

[fourpoint]

the spaceship scoring was not random, there was a way to always get 300

[Biouke]

Not mentionning that game's contribution to street art :p