Galaga!!!!!

August 07, 2020

Galaga!!!!!

I am so excited for this post, Galaga is my absolute favorite game!

Basic History

Galaga was made in 1981 by Namco, but was released in America by midway games. It was developed by a small team led by Shigeru Yokoyama. The game is technically a sequel to the 1979 game Galaxian, also made by Namco. The planning of the game alone took 2 months. Galaga was meant to improve on the overall Galaxian game play, which worked out very well. I actually HATE Galaxian. That's probably because I played Galaga and then Galaxian, so when playing Galaxian I was I was judging it on Galaga standards. The Galaga development teams got so addicted to the game, even the Namco CEO at the time got interested.

When Galaga was in the testing stage, it was NOT received well. Testers said that it was either too hard or too easy, no-one could agree which one it was. But, when Galaga was released, people absolutely LOVED it. To this day it is regarded as one of the greatest video-games of all times, and a classic of the golden age of video-games of all time, and I agree with both statements.

Game Storyline

Galaga takes place in the year 2283, during the third Galaga war. You are a pilot for the United Galaxy Space Force (UGSF), and your mission is to save Earth from a Galagan invasion.

Gameplay

You control a single starship at the bottom of the playfield. The playfield has no aliens (Or sometimes called bugs) on it when the game starts. Aliens will start to come up from the bottom of the screen and will line up in formation at the top of the screen. Then once all aliens are in formation, some will fly down while shooting lasers. You have to shoot back and avoid hitting the bugs, or the bugs' lasers.

Trivia

On the first level, you can go all the way to the left of the screen and the bugs won't be able to hit you for up to 15 minutes
If you kill all the bugs except for the two lined up vertically on the far left, and avoid them for 15 minutes and then kill them, not bugs will shoot at you for the rest of the game.
If a boss Galaga steals your ship with it's tractor beam and you kill it, you will then control 2 ships at once.