Apple Invaders
Name: Apple Invaders
Programmer(s): David Sullivan
Publisher: Brøderbund Software
Year: 1981
Description:
Apple Invaders was one of the first arcade-style games released for the Apple II computer in 1978. Created by Japanese programmer Hiroshi Suzuki and published by Astar International, this game brought the space shooting experience to home computers when most people only knew such games from arcades.
The game works like this: you control a laser cannon at the bottom of the screen that moves left and right. Above you, rows of alien invaders march back and forth across the screen, slowly descending toward Earth. Your job is to shoot all the aliens before they reach the bottom. The aliens fire back at you, and you can hide behind four shields that gradually break apart when hit. As you destroy more aliens, the remaining ones speed up, making the game harder.
Apple Invaders uses simple graphics made of text characters and basic shapes. The aliens look like letters and symbols rather than detailed creatures. The game has no music and only basic beeping sounds when you fire or destroy an enemy. Players use the paddle controller to move their cannon smoothly across the screen and press the button to fire. You can only have one bullet on screen at a time, so timing your shots becomes important.
The game starts easy but gets challenging fast. Each wave brings 55 aliens arranged in five rows of eleven. The top rows score more points when hit. A mystery ship occasionally flies across the top of the screen for bonus points if you can hit it. When you clear all aliens, a new wave appears slightly lower than before. Most players struggle to survive past the fifth or sixth wave.
What made Apple Invaders special was its speed and smooth movement on the Apple II. Suzuki programmed the game in assembly language to make it run fast on the computer's limited processor. The game fit in just 8KB of memory, which seems tiny today but was impressive programming for 1978. It showed that home computers could deliver arcade-style action.
Apple Invaders became one of the most popular early Apple II games. It inspired many programmers to create their own space shooting games. While it copied the concept of Space Invaders from the arcades, it proved that the Apple II could be a serious gaming machine. The game's success helped establish the Apple II as more than just a business computer and encouraged other developers to create action games for the system.