Mini Space Invaders title screen.
Mini Space Invaders is a freeware game that was developed by Andrew Canham and was released in 2004. It features the unique concept of living up to its name by having an astounding 352 small invaders per screen.
Gameplay[]
As per Space Invaders usual, a formation of invaders appears over the player's laser base and moves from side to side. Once the formation reaches a screen edge, it will drop down a notch closer to the player. The invaders drop bombs all the while, which, if one hits the player's base, they will lose that base and the game will end when there are no more bases left in reserve. The game will also end if an invader reaches the very bottom of the screen. The player can also take shelter behind several shields, although they can be damaged from being shot by the player and invaders. A high scoring U. F. O. will also appear several times during a wave.
With this clone, the invaders come in several forms, looking like rats, lobsters, monsters, and babies. They fire pretty quickly, although the player can fire several shots in only a couple of seconds, but they travel fairly slowly. Also, when the player gets down to only one remaining invader, it still won’t move very quickly, unlike with just about any other Space Invaders games.
As opposed to four on the arcade original, there are nine bunkers onscreen, making it difficult to fire at the invaders, as there is not a lot of space between the bunkers, plus it takes a while to shoot a hole through the bunkers. However, the bunkers don’t get replaced with new ones once the player clears a level. Also, rather than coming out during a set time frame, bonus U. F. O.s will sometimes come out one right after the other in only a short amount of time.
Controls[]
- Start game--any key
- End game--exit key
- Move laser base--arrow keys
- Fire--ctrl key
Trivia[]
- The main screen has a rendition of the original Space Invaders machine artwork.
- When the bonus U. F. O. appears, it makes a near-perfect replica of the sound effect from when the player destroys the U. F. O. from the original arcade game.
- There aren’t many sound effects in the game, just when the player’s base gets hit and the saucer appears and gets destroyed; the rest of it is techno music.