@@st0rmchild It's a great article, I would recommend passers-by to read it, but the relevant section refers to Stanford's Jargon File, a lexicon of hacker-speak and internet acronyms, which noted that the phrase in question was widely, perhaps overused in hacker circles even before 1975, (three years before Space Invaders) when it was added to the file.
@@deus_ex_machina_ Yeah…my guess is it was coined at either MIT or Stanford at some point in the 60s. I don't remember if that phrase is mentioned, but Hackers (Steven Levy) is the best book I've read about that time period.
When I saw the title I thought you would be talking about the artist design of the in-game icons used in Space Invaders, but I was pleasantry surprised. I’m always wondering where certain things in games started and this could be a great opportunity to talk about games which may not have been the most popular but set the trends in the industry and led to our favorite games
RyanRising Anyone can produce content documenting history. Gaming Historian does that, too, but all of them have very different approaches and that’s the good part!
I love Space Invaders, but I didn’t know it had this many ‘firsts,’ let alone anything about the tech behind it. It’s wonderful how you actually explored the game and didn’t just use sales numbers to say how ‘big’ it was. Really looking forward to more of this series. Also, maybe the most beautiful video you’ve made yet, and I think that this channel was already at the top of video presentation.
I'm super psyched about this new series! This is gonna be fun. Also, my favourite Space Invaders reboot is Radiant, which I own for macOS. It looks really great while keeping the feel of the original artstyle, it's got a cute, self-aware, funny story, it adds a small extra mechanic around different weapons, it's obviously longer with more variety in the levels, and it gets more challenging at the end too (which it needs to be at a longer playtime).
The graphic design in this video is on a whole other level, your work has always looked beautiful since the beginning but there's just something about your most recent videos that really set them apart. I also really like this new series, it's super interesting and I'm very excited to see where it goes next!
My little nephew has a tendency to ask what certain words mean. When the day comes and he asks me "What does 'pedantic' mean?" I'm going to show him your comment.
This is a strong start! As someone who got into gaming fairly late, it's always nice to hear about the older history of games like this. May this series have a long and successful life! :D
I apreciate the research but even more amazing is the level of detail you put into the video. Making the O look like a loading icon for example. Your channel is a gem of youtube.
Looking forward to more of this series! Your videos are incredibly helpful both in introducing me to great games I've never played, and offering tips on game design in case I ever try my hand at making a game.
Idea for a one-off video: a study in the evolution of a single gameplay concept where we follow Asteroids, Amiga's Stardust, and then Super Stardust HD. These are all the same game (a ship shoots various rocks and ships near a planet's surface), but Stardust flips the viewpoint so you're not looking up at the sky from the planet's surface (with the ship disappearing from view on one side and then reappearing on the other), but are instead looking down at the planet, and then Super Stardust HD modifying the viewpoint again so you follow the ship around the planet's surface so it never leaves your view.
@@CurtisJensenGames I've just discovered that both scores were composed by Lifeformed! The particular track Mark used is the opening and closing music for the Double Fine Documentary (which is phenomenal, for those who haven't seen it). ru-vid.com/group/PLIhLvue17Sd7F6pU2ByRRb0igiI-WKk3D
Space Invaders is the ancestor of pretty much all modern video games. Virtually every modern video game has roots that can be traced back to Space Invaders in some shape or form.
Thanks heaps for giving such an elaborate recap, I am trying to get into the game development industry myself and knowing the key features really help me in defining what genre to explore and whether the features are still relevant today. I have a new found appreciation for arcade games now!
This is a great idea for a series of games, and I think that it can be really interesting and informative. One thing that I'm noticing is that this video is mentioning innovations that Space Invaders pioneered that I didn't know would be innovations until I'm told so, for example, that this is the first shooting game where enemies shot back. It might be helpful if we heard a bit about what games where like (at least games from the same or similar genres) were like just before the subject game was introduced, so we know what this design icon brought to the table.
This is a great idea for a series of videos. I always love learning about the history of design. You could even expand this so certain episodes cover especially influential designers. That would be a great way to highlight contributors to the industry (artists, composers, programmers, managers, philosophers, etc.) who may have flown under the radar at their time or been forgotten since.
Your motion graphic animations are looking super nice! Noticed you had some banding on the radial gradient background at the start. A way to diminish how noticeable the solid edges in the gradient are is to make sure you are in 32 bit color. To do this in After Effects, just click on the [8 bpc] tab at the bottom of the project panel and in the window that pops up, click the depth drop down and select [32 bpc (float)]. Keep up the great work! I can't wait for the next installment.
Thank you! I have been searching Dodonpachi not knowing what it's name was for 20 years going through so many shoot em up and bullethell lists. Finally my search is over for the mysterious arcade cabinet from my childhood.
Great video and awesome idea for a series! One thing Space Invaders also introduced was Narrative. It was the first game with a story, even though it was simple, and inscribed on the arcade machines.: "You were a pilot with the task to stop the alien invasion"
Cool idea for a series, Mark. Looking forward to the future entries! I think it's to Space Invaders' credit that I often forget just how old it is. Sure, it's simple and pretty repetitive by modern standards, but I find it to still be surprisingly playable today (which is more than I can say about most games from the 70s. )
I'll always associate this style of video with Ahoy, but that doesn't diminish the quality of this video. Looking forward to more entries in this series.
I just made a video about this game too a few days ago, telling almost everything you said here (in spanish), it breaks my heart to see the difference in production values, you can take your time to make every video and I have to rush it to make my channel grow. It takes 2 weeks for you and 3 days for me. God I hate youtube's algorithm... nice video you are an inspiration to others, I loved this and you are for me a role model to follow on video production, love and care about video games.
I think this is going to be a great series! By the way, I think in the next episode you should try putting the game in context more, say what most games were like at the time so there can be a better sense of what the game did that was new.
This is the basic premise of Pat Holeman's History of Game Design video. I appreciated that you cited him in the description, but I wish you had mentioned him in the video.
I love this series already, I wanted to do something like this for such a long time but I'm glad you're tackling it because you're awesome and this series needs to be done well.
The idea of using the games own processing power in the form of reducing game sprites to increase difficulty is very ingenious and really takes advantage of the technology, knowing it was somewhat unintentional is great.
As a kid growing up in Japan in the late 70s/early 80s this game had a huge impact on me. My dad was in the US Air Force and we were living just outside Tokyo. Due to the huge surplus of Space Invaders machines, the arcades would dump them rather than repair them if they had problems. So some US Servicemen would prowl alleys for these machines, fix them and resell them. This is how I ended up owning a Space Invaders cocktail table at home at the age of ... I dunno... maybe 5. I remember crying in frustration at how bad I was at it, but being unable to pull myself away. One of the playground games we kids played was called Space Invaders. It was a very odd version of dodge ball where several kids would line up and stomp back and forth in a staccato beat chanting SPACE IN VADE ERS SPACE IN VADE ERS. And one kid got to be the ship that 'shot' the invaders with a dodge ball. Now I'm 25 years into a game design career and it's fun to imagine all the little levers that were pulled in my brain during those formative years that lead me to where I am today.
A fantastic first episode of this new series. I really enjoyed it and learnt a couple of new facts along the way. Thanks for making and uploading this video. I look forward to the next one.
Just got to say I absolutely love how you source and reference all your material in the description. Something that should really be the norm but I see very little of on RU-vid. Amazing work man it must take forever to make these vids!
By the way, in 2017, Arkanoid vs Space Invaders was released on mobile devices, so this is a kind of tribute to Tomohiro Ishikado, who loved Arkanoid, who inspired on Space Invaders)))
As a regular guy, who has nothing to do with the gaming industry, yet is highly interested in its hinsotry, this is EXACLTY the type of content I am looking for. So, before even watching the video, I shall thank you for the work you have put into this project, and i am looking forward on how it develops. ~Thank you, from a random fan, who thinks you and the type of work you do, is awesome
I think bullet hell is different enough to be considered an offshoot of shoot-em-ups rather than a shoot-em-up in itself. In a shoot-em-up, the player does the majority of the shooting to take down big waves of enemies, versus a bullet hell where a singular enemy is doing most of the shooting and the player is just trying to stay alive.
@@seacliff217 I think that he mentioned Dodonpachi because it codified the bullet hell genre, while most Touhou games simply participate in that defined genre. Dodonpachi can be found on the tie linking Touhou back to Space Invaders.
