A pair of cool retro cufflinks.
Space Invaders (
Japanese: スペースインベーダー
Hepburn:
Supēsu Inbēdā?)is an
arcade video game created by
Tomohiro Nishikado and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by
Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the
Midway division of
Bally.
Space Invaders is one of the earliest
shooting games and the aim is to defeat waves of aliens with a laser cannon to earn as many points as possible. In designing the game, Nishikado drew inspiration from popular media:
Breakout,
The War of the Worlds, and
Star Wars. To complete it, he had to design custom hardware and development tools.
It was one of the forerunners of modern video gaming and helped expand the
video game industry from a novelty to a global industry (see
golden age of video arcade games). When first released,
Space Invaders was very successful.
The game has been the inspiration for other video games, re-released on numerous platforms, and led to several sequels.