The Hardest Part Of Space Invaders Was A Bug
In 1978, Space Invaders' aliens sped up only because the hardware had fewer of them to draw, and Nishikado kept the bug.
The script
The scariest part of Space Invaders was never designed.
In nineteen seventy-eight, Tomohiro Nishikado built it on a machine that could barely keep up.
Fifty-five aliens on screen... and the computer could only move them so fast.
So they crawled.
But every time a player shot one, the computer had one less alien to draw.
So the rest... moved a little faster.
You see, by the last alien, the machine wasn't busy anymore... so it raced.
Nishikado could have fixed it. Instead, he kept it.
So the game got harder... because the computer got less tired.
Which is why...
The facts, checked
- Space Invaders (Taito, 1978) by Tomohiro Nishikado.
- Each alien destroyed reduced the processor load, so the remaining aliens moved faster. The code contains no deliberate speed-up.
- Nishikado noticed it and kept it, which created the rising-tension difficulty the game is known for.
