
Galaga is a shoot’em up type of game, like most 80s arcade games, that is marketed in 1981 by Namco. It is in fact the sequel of the Galaxian game. Importantly, Galaga is the first arcade game that allows a single player to play with two ships simultaneously. It is also the first to have bonus levels (called “challenging stages”) between levels.
flying down toward the player, firing bullets at and attempting to crash into them
The player controls a spaceship that moves only horizontally at the bottom of the screen and can only fire single shots. As in Galaxian, vessels can fly down towards the player, firing bullets at and attempting to crash into him. Some vessels (the mother ship or “Boss Galaga”) have the opportunity to approach the player’s ship and capture it. One of Galaga’s attractive features that its predecessors didn’t have is the ability for a single player to control two ships simultaneously. To get there, the player must perform the following operation:
1. Get captured by a mother ship
2. Allow the mother ship to reach its place at the top
3. Wait until the mother ship, along with the captured ship, start attacking again
4. Shoot the mother ship and destroy it (taking care not to touch the captured vessel)
5. The captured vessel is placed next to the new player’s ship
After this maneuver, the player has two vessels and can fire two shots simultaneously. However, he plays with two lives at once. He is also twice as vulnerable since he is twice as large.