[HN Gopher] Space Invaders creator reveals game's origin story ___________________________________________________________________ Space Invaders creator reveals game's origin story Author : bookofjoe Score : 69 points Date : 2023-04-16 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.wired.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com) | Luc wrote: | This is so badly written. Seems to exist mostly to plug that mini | cabinet. | | Here's a much better one from 10 years ago: | https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-spac... | ncr100 wrote: | Glad these people are being interviewed. NoClip | (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0fDG3byEcMtbOqPMymDNbw) also | talks to game developers / artists / and more. | | It's calming and assuring to my intellectual / perfectionism | streaks to read about Important People also having to make | mistakes, and iterate in order to find a great solution. | hepek wrote: | Slightly offtopic: French guerilla artist invading the world with | iconic graphics from the game: | | https://space-invaders.com/world/ | fauxpause_ wrote: | I still think the most interesting thing is that the game doesn't | intentionally speed up aliens, the game just runs faster when | there's fewer aliens. | codeulike wrote: | The frame rate stays the same (e.g. the player always moves the | same speed). It's more that only one invader gets moved on each | frame. So the fewer invaders there are, the more they get | moved. It's deliberate. | | I guess they weren't doing a whole-screen-refresh (with double | buffer) in those days, just turning pixels on and off to move | the objects. So then there's a limit to how many objects can | move per frame. | | E.g. the player moves by blanking our pixels on one side and | adding them on the other... | morelisp wrote: | There's no code which controls the aliens' speed; that doesn't | mean it wasn't intentional. | Jorengarenar wrote: | It was intentionally decided that "it's not a bug, it's a | feature!" | iamerroragent wrote: | "We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents." | | - Bob Ross | morelisp wrote: | I'm just a little sick of this getting trotted out as a | factoid when it's patently ridiculous, like they never | noticed it or that compensating for it in some way was | impossible. There are _actual unintentional mechanics_ like | the Nagoya Shot, unexpected technical skills like the | rainbow finish, or one of the earliest examples of RNG | manipulation for UFO control, that are much more | interesting to talk about. | [deleted] | fauxpause_ wrote: | It was not intentionally designed. It was intentionally | left in. The first statement is what is cool. | peteri wrote: | There is some code that controls the speed when there is a | single alien left it moves faster right to left see the code | at 00C2 in | http://computerarcheology.com/Arcade/SpaceInvaders/Code.html | | But basically one alien moves every video frame. | jhbadger wrote: | Odd that the screenshot in the article isn't of the actual arcade | game but rather the Atari 2600 port (which is granted a quite | good port given the limitations of the 2600), but still. | hota_mazi wrote: | Indeed. And it's not hard to find screenshots of the actual | game since Space Invaders is a very popular project for people | interested in emulation: | | https://github.com/cbeust/space-invade.rs | dottrap wrote: | Thank you for identifying that. I felt a bunch of things were | off in that screenshot. For one, I don't remember those colors. | But I didn't trust my memory. | | But more importantly, since the article went on to describe the | "octopus" and other aliens in some detail, I was looking at | that picture trying to see those details. None of those aliens | were quite as I remembered them. That Atari 2600 picture really | doesn't do justice to what the article goes into detail about. | blihp wrote: | There was color but it was achieved via tinted cellophane | tape. (though I do remember playing pure black and white | versions as well) Later, there were 'real' color versions in | arcades but I don't recall if it was a later iteration of the | hardware or a knock-off. | bookofjoe wrote: | https://archive.ph/HyCJT ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-04-16 23:00 UTC)