Galaxian

About Galaxian

Galaxian is a 1979 fixed shooter video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. The player assumes control of the Galaxip starfighter in its mission to protect Earth from waves of aliens. Gameplay involves destroying each formation of aliens, who dive down towards the player in an attempt to hit them.

Designed by company engineer Kazunori Sawano, Galaxian was Namco's answer to Space Invaders, a similar space shooter released the previous year by rival developer Taito. Space Invaders was a sensation in Japan, and Namco wanted a game that could compete against it. Sawano strove to make the game simple and easy to understand. He was inspired by the space combat scenes in Star Wars, with enemies originally being in the shape of the film's TIE Fighters. Galaxian is one of the first video games to feature RGB color graphics, and the first to use a tile-based hardware system, which was capable of animated multi-color sprites as well as scrolling; the latter was limited to the starfield background while the game itself remained a fixed shooter.