Space Invaders (Atari 2600 video game)

Space Invaders is a 1980 video game based on Taito's arcade game Space Invaders (1978) for the Atari 2600. It was developed and released by Atari, Inc. and designed and developed by Rick Maurer. The game is based on the arcade game in which a player operates a laser cannon to shoot at incoming enemies from outer space. Maurer's version has unique graphics and offers some gameplay variations. These include a two-player mode and variations that allow for invisible enemies and moving shields, and for enemies shots to zig zag and potentially hit players.

Prior to working at Atari, Maurer developed games at Fairchild Semiconductor. When joining Atari, he was impressed with the Space Invaders arcade game and began developing it in his own time at the company. The game had little interest from the staff, until Ray Kassar saw how well Space Invaders was doing in arcades, which lead him to get the rights to the game for the Atari 2600 and for Maurer to complete his code.

Space Invaders would be one of Atari's biggest hits in 1980, with Electronic Games magazine referring to it as a console seller for the system. It became one of the best-selling games for the Atari 2600. When Maurer was only compensated with a $11,000 bonus for the success of the game, he left the company and never developed another Atari 2600 game. The success of Space Invaders led to Atari seeking out other arcade titles from other companies to publish for home consoles from companies such as Namco and Centuri.

Gameplay
Space Invaders has the player at war with enemies from outer space. The player uses the joystick to move left and right and hit the red button fire a laser cannon. The goal is to earn as many points as you can by destroying the enemies with a laser cannon and to eliminate as many of them as you can before they reach the bottom of the screen or before you are hit three times but their own laser attacks. The further rows of aliens give the player more points when hit. If you destroy 36 of them, a new set will appear. In a single-player game, a Command Alien ship will periodically move across the top of the screen. It is worth a larger amount of points than the regular enemies.

The Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders alters the gameplay of the arcade Space Invaders. It features 36 invaders instead of 55 and only features three defence bunkers instead of four. The game offered various variations on gameplay, such the ability to have moving bunkers, shots that zig-zag, invisible invaders who would only reveal their position when they were hit by the player successfully. The Atari version of Space Invaders also included a co-operative two-player mode that was not present in any form in the arcade game. There are two variations of play in two-player mode, a partnered mode, where each player can move left or right respectively and both can fire the cannon. Another allows for one player to control the cannon and the other to control the movement of their ship.

Development
The Atari version of Space Invaders was developed by Rick Maurer. Prior to working for Atari, Inc., Maurer worked at Fairchild Semiconductor developing the games such as Pinball Challenge and Hangman for the Fairchild Channel F. Atari had released their system the Atari 2600 towards the end of 1977. It was initially released with nine titles available, five of which (Air-Sea Battle, Combat, Star Ship, Surround and Video Olympics) were based on existing arcade properties (Anti-Aircraft (1975), Tank (1974), Starship 1 (1977), Blockade (1976) and Pong (1972)).

Space Invaders was programmed by Toshihiro Nishikado for Taito in 1978. Midway arranged to distribute the game in the United States following its success in Japan. Rick Mauruer initially came up with the idea of developing a version of Space Invaders for the Atari 2600. At this time in the company, games were not assigned to developers, leading to Maurer to scout local arcades for ideas and being impressed Taito's Space Invaders arcade game, specifically the sound of the game, and began developing the game on his own. Mauer began developing of his version of the game in 1978. Mauer described the process of coding for the Atari 2600 as "having to unlearn every good programming practice you've learned." Fulton developed the game for a few months to get it into a playable state, but received little attention from the consumer division of Atari, who were not interested in having Mauer progress further to develop the game at the time. Maurer then moved on to coding Maze Craze (1980), which he thought would help him hone in his development skills for the Atari 2600.

Management at Atari later noticed discovered the financial success of Taito's Space Invaders in late 1978. Ray Kassar went to Japan in 1979 to get the rights to the game. This allowed Maurer to continue development of his version. He initially sought out a cover art designer at Atari to create the illustrations of the invaders on graph paper to use in the game. This never happened, leaving Maurer to use his own designs for the characters. Fulton's Space Invaders was initially seven kilobytes (KB) and had to be cut down. He spent three months editing his code to be able to fit on the four KB rom cartridge.

Reception
Space Invaders was released for the Atari 2600 on March 10, 1980. It became a high seller in 1980, earning Atari over $100,000,000. The console version of Space Invaders, along with popular arcade games Asteroids, Missile Command and Battlezone would move Atari's to a growth of $512.7 million for the year.

Ken Uston in his book Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games (1982) declared the version of the game as "one of Atari's best cartridges". In How to Win at Video Games (1982), an anonymous reviewer stated that "Of all the available bottom-shooting games that pit you against colorful rows of descending monsters, none can compare with the one and only home version of classic arcade game". In the 1983 Software Encyclopedia from Electronic Games, the game was given an overall rating of a perfect 10, noting high rankings for single-player gaming and gameplay, while only finding the games graphics and sound to be merely good.

From retrospective reviews, Computer and Video Games reviewed the game in 1989 stating the graphics were low-quality by contemporary standards and while it was an "enjoyable diversion for a while" and suggested that several other games since offer more variety and excitement. In an overview of the game in Retro Gamer (2007), a reviewer commented that the game did not resemble the Space Invaders that players knew, but it had so many qualities that and was still challenging and exciting game. In the magazines list of the top 25 Atari 2600 games, Stuart Hunt and Darran Jones listed Space Invaders in at their 14th spot, writing that it "may not have been able to successfully emulate its arcade peer, but its vast amount of options arguable made it just as good a game."

Legacy


Prior to the release of Space Invaders, the sales of the Atari Video Computer System were described as "respectable, if not spectacular" while the release of the game led to what Edward B. Driscoll, Jr. of Poptronics as making not just Atari, but "the whole home videogame industry, had its killer app." The game went on to becomes one of the best-selling games for the Atari 2600, with Atari video game designer Larry Kaplan saying that the console "was not doing that well -- there were only a few million in the field, and it looked like it was dying -- then Space Invaders came out, and bam! It exploded." The Winter 1981 issue of Electronic Games reported that this console release of Space Invaders led to Atari's dominance in the home video game market and that it was the one title that "sold the entire [Atari 2600] system in many cases." Atari 2600 sales to quadrupled following the games release.

The success of the game lead to Atari rescheduling their entire Atari 2600 line-up from being released during the holiday season to being released throughout the year. The company also began to focus translate as many of arcade hits to the Atari 2600, starting with Missile Command in 1981. Following the financial success of Space Invaders, Maurer himself was compensated with a $11,000 bonus. He was working in Atari's coin-op division developing a game with vector graphics that was to be a color version of Asteroids (1979), but stopped working on the game and left Atari. Maurer's code was picked up later by Owen Rubin and developed into an arcade game Space Duel (1982).

Along with bringing their own arcade hits to the Atari 2600, Atari also focused on licensing other popular arcade games to their console as they had with Space Invaders. Along with their own arcade games like Asteroids and Super Breakout, Atari would enter an agreement to license several of Namco's arcade titles in the United States in 1981 and in 1982, Atari received a four-year contract to distribute all current and future Centuri arcade games outside of the arcade systems.

A special version of the game titled Pepsi Invaders (1983) was produced at Atari that was given at to employees of the Coca-Cola Company at a sales convention in 1983. Rob Fulop would translate his own version of Space Invaders to the Atari 8-bit computers. Fulop's version also had unique elements to it, such as the invaders marching out of a rocket ship on the left side of the screen. In 2004, a hack of titled Space Invader Deluxe for the Atari 2600 was released which included the cut-scenes and color schemes similar to Space Invaders Part II (1979), using an extra 4K of rom to add a title screen and higher sound quality.