Galaga
Introduction
Galaga was developed and published by Namco for arcades in 1981, led by longtime company veteran Shigeru Yokoyama, and released in North America by Midway. It exists as a direct sequel to 1979’s Galaxian, Namco’s first genuine arcade hit, and came about somewhat by necessity: as Galaxian cabinet sales began slowing by the early 1980s, Yokoyama was tasked with building new games that could still run on leftover Galaxian hardware to help clear excess inventory. The project ultimately outgrew that plan, moving instead to a new board Namco’s R&D division developed specifically for it, dubbed the Galaga board, which went on to power other Namco arcade hits like Bosconian and Dig Dug. Players pilot a starfighter along the bottom of the screen, blasting formations of insect-like alien ships that swoop down in scripted dive-bomb attacks, with the added twist that certain enemies can capture the player’s ship with a tractor beam, which can then be rescued mid-game to fly as a powerful dual fighter. That mix of pattern-based formation shooting and its captured-ship mechanic helped Galaga become one of the most enduring and frequently re-released arcade shooters ever made.
