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Arcade & Classic Games · 86

A score display gives failure a souvenir. The run ends, but the number remains as evidence that the next coin has a target. That connects nicely with a historical detail. Galaga let captured fighters become part of the player's strategy: rescuing one could create a more powerful dual-fighter formation at the cost of a larger target. The safest pattern works perfectly until the game becomes fast enough to expose that it was never safe.

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Arcade

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One strange fact

Galaxian and Galaga made enemy formations feel more alive by sending attackers diving out of formation. Suddenly the safe-looking pattern at the top of the screen could attack from unexpected angles. One more useful piece of useless knowledge: Q*bert debuted in 1982 with a pyramid of cubes drawn in a pseudo-3D perspective. Its title character even swore in a made-up symbol language when things went wrong, decades before emoji made that sort of thing feel normal.