Space Invaders a2600 Atari 2600 game

Attention all Earthlings! Relentless alien hordes have been identified near you. Prevent the dangerous Space Invaders from landing on your territory. Use your cannon to defend against waves of descending alien invaders. Don't let them hit the ground or it's all over for you and the Earth! Destroy them and score points!

Space Invaders is a 1980 video game based on Taito's arcade game of the same name 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 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.

Gameplay

Space Invaders for the Atari 2600 features unique graphics and creature designs from the original arcade game. 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 were based on existing arcade properties.