8 Bit Space Invader Ship Coloring Pages

Space Invaders was created in 1978 by Japanese designer Tomohiro Nishikado. The game became so popular in Japan that it caused a temporary shortage of 100-yen coins, as people emptied their pockets to play in arcades nationwide.

The blocky 8-bit design was created due to technical limitations of 1970s computers. Each invader sprite used only 8x8 pixels, forcing designers to be incredibly creative with minimal visual elements to create recognizable alien shapes.

The original Space Invaders featured three distinct alien ship designs: squid-like creatures worth 10 points, crab-shaped invaders worth 20 points, and octopus-style ships worth 30 points, each with unique pixel patterns.

The original 1978 arcade cabinets were actually black and white! The colorful appearance came from colored plastic strips placed over different sections of the screen, creating the illusion of colored graphics in specific areas.

Space Invaders was one of the first video games to achieve mainstream cultural impact, inspiring everything from hit songs to fashion. It established many gaming conventions still used today, like high score systems and power-ups.

Interestingly, the invaders actually speed up as you destroy more of them! This wasn't intentionally programmed but happened because fewer sprites meant less processing work, allowing the remaining invaders to move faster across the screen.