10 Greatest Programming Milestones In Gaming History

1. Space Invaders

Space Invaders was a phenomenal technical achievement. Not only did Tomohiro Nishikado design and code the game, but he composed the music, drew the art and built the hardware to run it. Unfortunately though, he couldn't find components that were powerful enough to run the game to his liking, resulting in one of gaming's greatest case of accidental genius. The game's processor was unable to cope when the screen was filled with alien ships, resulting in slow-down and screen tearing. As the player began shooting them out of the sky one by one, performance improved and enemies started to move a little faster. And so Tomohiro inadvertently invented the difficulty curve - the idea that a game should gradually become more difficult the further the player gets. It's a concept that fundamentally changed the rules of game design, so much so that it's hard to think of any game that came out after Space Invaders that doesn't use it. If that wasn't enough, 'Invaders essentially invented the shoot 'em up genre, the concept of a 'high score' and featured artificial intelligence that reacted to the player's movements too. It was also the first to feature background music - a simple four note scale that increased in tempo to emphasise the tension as the alien ships sped up and edged closer to the player. Space Invaders introduced so many new concepts and ideas that it's hard to quantify the overall impact it had on the industry. By releasing a game with performance issues that would be fixed with a patch today, Tomohiro Nishikado changed the way games were made forever. Which games do you think are technically impressive and will remain so when you're old and grey? Sound off in the comments!