Speaker 1: Here we are with Games of nineteen eighty one Level
two Galaga.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
Be Serious podcast. I am here today with some porters
jingling in my pocket, ready to shovel them into a slot.
Speaker 3: You get a little change in your pocket going jingle.
Oh my gosh, Georgia satellites. Really, if we had an
arcade anywhere around us, we would be blowing it up
right now. It's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: I am just depressed about the fact the Top Dog
closed down and we can't go play these games right now.
We've got a stupid COVID that keeps us from going
to any arcade because they're all worried about the germs
on the joysticks or whatever.
Speaker 3: And yeah, germs on the joysticks. Joystick germs. Today, we're
going to continue our discussion on Games of nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Right the year of the most amazing cabinet video arcade
came games ever, in my opinion.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about another classic today.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the game we're talking about the day is Galaga.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about Gallaga, all right.
Speaker 2: So Galaga, we know, is a shooter game, right, it's
a space shooter game, just like Space Invaders. Right, absolutely so.
But right, well, but before Galaga, there was Galaxian.
Speaker 3: And do you know anything about Galaxian? I remember playing Galaxian.
If you look.
Speaker 2: At Space Invaders, which came out in seventy eight, and
you look at Galaxian, which came out in seventy nine,
you'd be like, oh, my gosh, how do they improve
this much in one year? I'm a huge job huge
you had. You had multi colored spaceships. They were flying
around and smooth flying around, fantastic sound effects, and it
was the first game that used multi colored sprites and
RG colors. Okay, so do you know what Sprite is?
I think it's fair to tell everybody that you and
I are not computer guys per se, and we're not
gamers to the strictest sense. When we were kids who
loved these games.
Speaker 3: When we're kids, we're leaning on forty year old knowledge
right here.
Speaker 2: Yes we are, yes, And I have you know, I've
got a few gaming systems at my house, but I
don't really.
Speaker 3: Get to play them. That's something for my kids.
Speaker 2: R My wife and I play a guitar hero When
we first got married, I remember doing that, and we
also played Halo all of this to say we're players,
not programmers or anything like that. So sprites I had
to look it up. Basically, sprites are the way that
we have.
Speaker 3: It's not the living lime soda.
Speaker 2: But no, no, and we're not talking about the little
fairies either.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, good.
Speaker 2: So they sprites they called them stamps back then. They
are the little characters that move around on a map.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So you with Space Invaders, you've got guys moving back
and forth in a straight line on a screen. With
Galaga and Galaxian, they're moving like space is moving by.
And you know, you look at games like Donkey Kong,
you've got a character like Mario who's moving along through
a maze of stuff. That's what sprites are. They're little
characters that move along a screen, creating a more three
dimensional effect on a.
Speaker 3: Two D game. Okay, okay, yep.
Speaker 2: So the Namco Galaxian Arcade system board for Galaxian featured
animated multicolored sprites, and it was the first one to
do this. It had pre loaded sprites all over a
scrolling background, and that became the basis for Nintendo's Radar scope,
which is of course they became Donkey Kong, right, and
it was a huge boost for the Nintendo because they
had all kinds of sprites going on on their screens.
Speaker 3: Sure, okay, yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 2: So Galaxian had been developed as a hey, this is
our version of Space Invaders, and it was a million
times better, right, and then in nineteen eighty one we
have the creation of basically Galaxi in part two, except
that they call it Galaga. And Galaga was to Galaxy
and what Miss pac Man was to pac Man.
Speaker 3: It's a big step forward in the game. Yes, all right,
I've got a question for you. Okay, I've ever played
the game Gapless now Gapless otherwise known as Galagha three. Okay,
it's the sequel to Gallagha. I did not know existed
until today. And it wasn't Galaga two. Well, I guess
it goes Galaxian Galaga Galaga three. That doesn't that's not well,
you know, it's Japanese. It's about your line of thinking.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, okay, maybe it's Galica Cube. Maybe because I
think if I remember right when I saw it, when
I read about this, like you had a whole bunch
of ships that could shoot at the same time. Yes, okay, yes,
this came out in nineteen eighty four. I don't know
why this got by me.
Speaker 3: I was definitely in the arcade still at that time,
but don't remember this game at all. Yeah. No, for
whatever reason, Galaga eschedon in my memory.
Speaker 2: Because it's iconic. It is one of the best games
of all time.
Speaker 3: It is one of the best games. It is. I
mean it sounds like it's gapless. Was maybe the cousin etti, Yeah,
maybe the crystal skull. That is a conversation for another day. Right, So,
Galagha was developed by this guy called Shigeru Yokoyama. Yes,
so he developed this game, originally developed for the Galaxian
arcade board. Right. So, as he was developing this, he
wanted to create another way for the enemies to attack you. Okay, so,
other than your standard bombs or bullets or missiles. He
threw in the idea of a tractor beam, right, which
he learned from a movie in which a ship is
pulled in by another ship with a tractor beam. Some
unnamed new movie. The I could not in my studies
to find the name of the movie. However, I do
remember a small movie called Star Wars. Ah, yeah, where
this ship you may have heard of called the Millennium
Falcon is pulled in by a tractor beam. We're caught
in the tractor beam. That's right. It's got to be
Star Wars, right, it has it has to be, it
has to be. He also based on what he had
seen in pac Man and rally X. So pac Man
had an intermission, right, yeah, where.
Speaker 2: You get a little bit of the storyline, you get
you get your hand break so you don't get carble tom.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, and rally X had a bonus round, right,
and he thought, how about we combine the intermission with
the bonus round. And that's really what makes Kaliga really
stand out in my opinions. Two things. You have the
tractor beam that captures the ship yep. And when you
shoot the alien, the Boss Galaga that's the name of
that alien, that Boss Galagha who's captured your ship, you
then get to retake your ship and have dual shooters. Dude.
Speaker 2: I can remember with Clarity being in the arcade and
seeing Gallagher for the first time after having played Space
Invaders and probably Galaxian and seeing that happen, seeing that
I'm like, what's going what, what's happening right now?
Speaker 3: What is that blu ray? Is it gonna kill him?
What's gonna And I'm like, oh, it turned red. Is
he a bad guy? Now? What's gonna happen? I know? Right?
Speaker 2: And then when I saw the guy, I mean, you know,
I'm just a kid watching somebody who knew what they
were doing play.
Speaker 3: He shoots the Galaga.
Speaker 2: Ship and his ship returns to him and there's double fire.
I'm like, oh, it's a game changer, right, It's amazing.
Speaker 3: It's what makes the game so much more fun. Absolutely. So.
Two things that make Galagha stand out, in my opinion,
way better than Galax in our Space vatags. Yeah, two
things the dual shooting ships, yes, and the challenging stages.
Speaker 2: That part where they come on and then they fly
off the screen. It actually was an accident. It was
a bug in the system. So what he's trying to
come up with the intermission idea is one of his
other designers is like, hey, you've got a bug in
the system and these guys are just flying off the screen,
and he's like, oh, peanut, butter, chocolate, I got it.
Our intermission is going to be. The Galaga ships come
in for just a bit. You have to shoot them
before they fly off the screen, and that's how you
get the challenging sang.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely genius. It's Gala is such a great game.
One of the things I want to mention, here's a
little tidbit for you, Okay, for you older arcade guys. Yes,
one of the enemies, so you have I don't know
how to exactly describe it. If you've ever played the game,
you'll know what I'm saying. But the one alien ship
actually morps into three alien ships, yes, and they attack you.
So good.
Speaker 2: The graphics, oh my gosh, so incredible. We talked about Galaxian,
how the music was better and the sound effects of better,
and Galaga took it up like five notches.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely. One of those ships is the Galaxian flagship
from the game Galaxy. Oh right, right, okay, yeah, it's
kind of cool. Yes, flashback to Galaxian. Okay.
Speaker 2: So one of the other new features on it was
that the ship moved faster than it did in Galaxian.
You remember that, Yes, Glaxian had a slower ship, yes,
and so.
Speaker 3: We get a faster ship.
Speaker 2: Then The other new feature is that instead of firing
just one at a time, like Space Invaders and Galaxian
had done, you could fire multiple shots at the same time,
and not with I'm not even talking about with two ships.
I'm talking about with one ship. You're like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Because great Galaxian and Space Vaders sounded like this, yeah,
and Galagha is like, yep, we're enjoying this. We are.
Speaker 2: So I can remember playing this as a I mean,
I'm a little kid, right, I'm very young kid, yes,
And so my technique was just bound hammer, just I'm
moving back and forth trying to avoid the ships and
just hitting that fire button on repeat, like there's no
there's no strategy to the firing mechanism. As an adult,
having gone back and play the game, I am a
I'm not a rapid fire guy anymore. I'm more calculated delivered, Yes,
calculated and delivered in my shots. Okay, except in challenging
stage and then I have two ships and then I'm
back to rapid fire.
Speaker 3: Twelve year old hammer in the machine trying to break it.
You're hitting it so hard. So a couple of interesting
things about this, right, So when Yoku Yama was tasked
with creating this new sequel to Galaxian. He came up
with another game called King and Balloon. Yes, King and Balloon,
not really no, Okay, there you go. But the second
game it came up with was Gallagha. Right, you're right
for me to blow your mind. I'm gonna blow your mind. Okay,
all right, now, if you still play Galagha and you
enjoy the integrity of the game, you might want to
just close your ears for just a second. Are you
about to talk about the cheat? Yes? Do you know
the cheat? I know the cheat? Well, hopefully you dear listener,
I will blow your mind and I tell you this, Yeah,
I know about the cheat. Okay, this blew my mind
because I had no idea.
Speaker 2: I am ready to go find a Gallagher game just
so that I can try this out.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, all right, So as I understand, I haven't
done this yet, but I watched it.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 3: No, I'm sorry, We're not gonna tease you like that.
So in the first round, first phase, first phase phase one,
you have these aliens who dive down and then load
into their rows one, two, three, four. You shoot him,
just like normal. But the fifth wave you leave them alone.
So the blue guys that will load on the far left,
you don't shoot them, right, You shoot everybody else but
those two guys, yep, and you let them chase you
around for about ten minutes. It's really a long time.
It is a long time. It's a long time, ten
or twelve minutes. And then actually they'll stop shooting at
you after a while, but you still have to wait
because they fake you out sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you keep waiting, just kidding, we do have
more bullets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, So you wait until they get so bored
they won't shoot at you anymore, right, And it takes
a long time after that. Once they stop shooting at you,
you shoot them, and for the rest.
Speaker 2: Of the game, rest of the whole game.
Speaker 3: The rest of the whole game, the enemies will not
fire at you. My mind was blown when I found it.
Believe that I was going to try to knock you
out with it as well. Crap.
Speaker 2: But this is the wonderful thing about doing this podcast
is we learn these things that we never knew. And
the first time it came out like nobody knew it.
Nobody knew this little trick, and nobody knows why it's there,
whether it's a bug, or it's an Easter egg or
what you know, if it's some sort of testing thing
that they had in there. Nobody knows why it's there.
But it didn't come out until I think it was
like nineteen eighty three in a Joystick magazine that it
became public knowledge.
Speaker 3: Wow, well maybe it's maybe people know about it. I'm
late to the game on a lot of teams, but
can you imagine the scores you would get if you
had a dual shooter and they can't shoot at you?
Freaking out be rocking the game? We should go play
gallaghery go? I want to go? Okay? All right. One
of the interesting things that I learned about Gallic when
they developed the game, they would play it in their
computer company, right, yes, And so the guys who had
developed it, they of course show it to their peers
and they're all hanging around and the game isn't really popular. Yes,
these guys are proud of it. They like it. They
think it's a fun game. But when they test it out,
you know that you put it out in a restaurant
or a bar or whatever. They tested out it did poorly, okay,
And it's not because people didn't like it. It made
less money because people played for a longer period of time. Yes,
So they took it back and they learned from it,
and they're like, Okay, this game is fun. People like it.
It's popular. Just it's too easy, so they made the
levels more difficult. Right. This is something that I found interesting. Okay, Okay.
The average arcade game at the time, the average time
spent per game, yes, was about four minutes, and Galagha
still came in at seven minutes, which is nearly twice
as much as the average game. Right, But that makes
it a more enjoyable, more fulfilling experience for the players.
To me, that's why it's standing that tests the time,
because it's the gameplay is so much fun and it's
reasonably easy to get good at. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So can we talk about the music for a second, sure? Okay.
So the composer for Galaga is Nobuki. Yes, he is
a guy who is considered the father of game musically.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: So Anogi had grown up in Japan. Obviously, he got
his degree in engineering, but it was kind of a
casual thing. He was more interested in music and synthesized
music specifically and just kind of on a dare basically
applied at NAMCO and.
Speaker 3: Got the job.
Speaker 2: Well, this was nineteen eighty. They come out with the
game rally X, right, and I don't know if you
remember the screen where you entered your name, your initials
for the high score on rally X had fantastic music.
That was him, and so they were so impressed by that.
They're like, hey, we would like you to do music
for the entirety of Galaga. And if you remember Galagh's
high score, I mean it's like magical. You feel like
the end of Star Wars and.
Speaker 3: You're getting the metal put on you. It's awesome.
Speaker 2: And so he went on to be, like I said,
the father of video game music. The first time they
released a record that was a video game soundtrack record,
it was him working with the other guy to make
that soundtrack. I think that, like, there are ten of
those that have come out, and he was responsible for
five of them.
Speaker 3: He is done.
Speaker 2: You remember the game Mappy, Yeah, I love that Mappy again.
It's fantastic music. He's the one responsible. Tragically, he passed
away twenty nineteen, big loss. But the music from Galaica
is one of the key features that makes it a
fantastic game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all right, well we're starting to wrap Gallagay.
I just want to make one more comment about Galaghay. Okay,
So obviously, of these five games that we're talking about
this series, Yeah, the biggest pisser of all to me, yeah,
is when you shoot your own ship. Oh my god,
when Miss Maaguine gets eaten, ah, dang it, gush, dang it,
I'm mad about that, or Froger gets hit by a
car or whatever. But when you shoot your own ship,
that to me, right, that's when the big, the big
profanity comes out at there, kay.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, because you're taking a risk in the first place, right,
deliberately sacrificing maybe one of your lives, yeah, in order
to get the double shot ship, because you can hit him,
and you can hit him wrong and he explodes him
in the ear. But if if you've ever done this,
if you've hit it, hit the ship that's got your ship,
and your ship spins and starts floating down, and you
just accidentally shoot at it as it's floating down, it
will still explode. So you literally you've lost it for
no reason at all. Nobody's shooting at you, nobody's bothering you.
You just were stupid.
Speaker 3: Still makes me mad. All right, Well that about wraps Galigha. Yeah,
hope you enjoyed it. Hope you try out that funky trick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope you have a game available to you
to me too, Me too, have to track one down.
Speaker 3: There's one in Arlington. I know we may have to
travel down just to try it.
Speaker 2: Just you know, i'p skipping a jump down.
Speaker 3: All right, guys, thank you for joining us for this
coverage of Galiga.
Speaker 2: Be sure to hit that subscribe button in the face,
hit us up on Facebook, up on Twitter, hit us
up on Patreon, and we thank you.
Speaker 3: We'll see them, I guess