Galaxian (Arcade)

Galaxian
Developer: Namco Publishers: Namco (JP/EU), Taito (JP Alt), Midway Manufacturing (US) Platform: Arcade (Namco Galaxian hardware) Released in JP: October 1979 Released in US: December 1979 Released in EU: 1980 This game has revisional differences.

A Galaxian is like a more proactive Invader; they won't think twice about charging right at y-- wait, the Galaxians are the humans?

Version Differences

There are five Galaxian sets in MAME. They seem to follow the chronology below:

	Namco Set 2 MAME: galaxiana	Taito Set MAME: galaxiant	Midway Set 2 MAME: galaxianmo	Midway Set 1 MAME: galaxianm	Namco Set 1 MAME: galaxian
Bonus Life Setting	Old	Old	Alternate	New	New
Extra Lives	3 or 5	3 or 5	2 or 3	2 or 3	2 or 3
Laser Limit	2	2	2	3	3

Namco	Taito	Midway

Of course, each publisher has a different logo on the title screen. This is the only difference between the Taito set and Namco set 2.

Bonus Life Setting

	1	2	3	4
Old	None	4,000	5,000	7,000
Alt	None	3,000	4,000	5,000
New	7,000	10,000	12,000	20,000

• In the oldest sets, there are three extra life settings, and one setting that disables the extra life feature entirely.
• In Midway Set 2 only, the extra life settings are lower.
• In newer sets, there are four extra life settings, and all of the scores are higher than in previous sets.

Older Sets	Midway Set 1	Namco Set 1

• The higher score values meant that the "BONUS GALAXIP" string had to be readjusted.
• In Midway Set 1, the score value and the "PTS" graphic were shifted to the right 8 pixels, potentially putting the "PTS" graphic in the overscan area of the monitor.
• In Namco Set 1, the "BONUS GALAXIP FOR" text was shifted to the left 8 pixels, and the string is now properly centered.

Extra Lives

Only the older Namco set and the Taito set let the player start with 5 lives.

Laser Limit

In older sets, each alien can only shoot two lasers at a time.

In newer sets, each alien can shoot up to three lasers at a time. To support the new laser limit, code was added to the laser drawing routine to flicker the lasers. The game alternates between drawing even ID lasers and odd ID lasers each frame.

(Source: Original TCRF research)