Space Invaders was the first block buster Video Game. The first of the videogames that took over some space in the Flipperhalls. But there was also some competition between versions of Space Invaders. Space Invaders was designed and programmed by Toshihiro Nishikado for Taito, Japan in 1978 and remains one of the most popular arcade games ever made. Nowadays you can play it on your mobile phone. Mister Nishikado probably never imagined that in 1978.



Space Invaders was the first pinball machine to be based on a video game. Bally's video game division, Midway, had licensed Space Invaders from Taito in Japan, and decided to capitalize on the machine's incredible success by using it as a theme for a pinball.

It was a wide-body game, with the cabinet being as wide as the backbox. The artwork on the machine was highly inspired by H.R. Giger's design for the "Alien" from the movie with the same name. In fact, they ended up stopping production of the game early due to pending lawsuits, the artwork was so similar, though 11,400 machines were produced.

The backglass was actually two seperate pieces. The back piece had the game's name, a very large alien (as stated, looking incredibly similar to Giger's alien), and was mirrored. Around the edge was a set of 32 lights that would light in sequential patterns around the edge of the backbox. In front of the lights was another backglass, designed to reflect the image back upon itself while still being seen from the outside. The end result was that the moving lights would seem to head off into infinity.

The sound effects also attempt to recreate the feeling of the Space Invaders video game. A repetetive "thump-thump" plays, speeding up as you hit more targets. It can get annoying after a while...

The plunger lane heads to the top, where the ball is trapped by two gates in a section with three rollover lanes below it. The rollovers lead to a set of three pop bumpers. A path to the right leads back into the rollovers from down below. To the upper left is the 'clone chamber', where a captive ball is stored, and when hit, rolls up to a target.

In the center, directly below the bumpers, is a small horseshoe, and the center of the horseshoe has a single target at the bottom. On the middle left side is a set of three drop targets, with more drop targets on the right side.

There are four flippers at the bottom. A regular set of two flippers, with a set of two mini-flippers above them, and toward the sides. There is one outlane on each side, and two inlanes, with the inner inlanes going to the small flippers.



If the Taito Machine and the Bally Pinball Machine were together to choose in a game room? What would you Choose to play?

To play Space Invaders i woud do the following:

	Insert a coin in the Pinball Machine
	Insert a coin in the Videogame
	Just play it on my mobile phone
view results

Or play (or download) Space Invaders now here online:

space invaders (swf, 16 KB)