Galaga Enamel Pins Bring the 8-Bit Goodness

I’ve played a whole lot of arcade games in my lifetime, but one that I always go back to is Namco’s classic Galaga. It’s every bit as playable and challenging today as it was the day it came out in 1981, and now I don’t even have to spend quarters to play it. If you love Galaga as much as I do, check out these enamel pins inspired by the game.

Etsy seller Wardingers creates these awesome pixel art pins based on enemies like the Bee, Butterfly, Scorpion, Galaxian, and Bosconian. I never knew the names of these characters before now – it was easier to kill nameless, soulless aliens. Now every time I go to shoot at them, I’m going to think about that Bosconian’s wife and kids. Thanks, Wardingers, thanks.

The Galaga enamel pins sell for $9.25 each, or you can buy them in sets, with the full 7-piece collection selling for $52.75. Of course, I’d need to buy two fighters because I always joined mine together for maximum firepower.

Artificial Intelligence Learns To Play Galaga, There Goes My High Score

Back in my day, it was humans who played arcade games, fighting other humans for their spot on the high score screen. We never thought we would have to worry about robots or AIs learning to play these games. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let some artificial dirtbag beat my high scores. Bad enough I lose my champion status every time the machine is unplugged. This means war.

What am I going on about? This video of an artificial intelligence system called LearnFun And PlayFun, learning how to play the arcade classic Galaga. This AI is pretty good at the game too. It looks like after performing a single one-frame dodge it can then perform it perfectly every time after. So basically this AI threatens everyone who holds a high score on any arcade game.

It seems to make some dumb moves, like shooting blindly into space, but the AI eventually gets the job done. Check out the whole video to study its moves so we can learn to beat it. How does the game end? Well, Windows had to do an update, so we will never know how long it could have gone on for. I like to think that the OS also felt threatened by this AI and took action.

[via Digg via Geekologie]

How To: Play Galaga In 2015

How to play galaga

The entire world loves Galaga, the (slightly) mode modern take on the Space Invaders formula. This is how you can play the game today, in devices from this generation. 

 

Galaga is one of the greatest classics of all time, a fast-paced action shooter where players control a ship and have to fight off hordes of enemies with unpredictable patterns and bug-like aesthetics. This game was originally created by Namco in 1981 for arcade machines as a sequel to 1979’s Galaxian. Galaga innovated on the Space Invaders formula by having more enemies moving at the same time, in more complex patters, and having brighter, better graphics that made the game absolutely beautiful for its time. Since its original release, it has shown up in many other platforms, and can be played on almost any machine imaginable.

Ever since 2012’s Avengers movie, where Tony Stark comments on a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the background playing the game in one of the movie’s funniest scenes, the game has had sort of a revived interest in it. If you need to have this game back in your life, here’s some alternatives for you.

Play the classic version on NES

You can always undust your old NES and play what many of us consider the ultimate version of the game – it is just as good as you remember and, in our eyes, nothing beats the 8-bit original.

Play Galaga on Nintendo 3DS

If for whatever reason you don’t have an old NES around, or would rather play video games on the go, Nintendo and Namco have you covered. Pac-man & Galaga Dimensions is a fantastic update to both Galaga and Pac-Man, taking full advantage of the hardware innovations of Nintendo’s latest handheld. Players can enjoy these two classics in 3D, with revamped graphics and sound, and controlling the action with either touch controls, motion controls, or the regular controls so the experience can be as tight or light as the moment requires. It’s a very, very cool edition and we can’t help but recommend it for all gamers.

Play Galaga on your smartphone

As recently as this year, Namco has been steadily releasing versions and reversions and different ports of Galaga. We want to recommend Galaga: TEKKEN Edition for Android and iOS for smartphone users, which is also a crossover with the popular fighting video game TEKKEN. For those that would rather have a more vanilla experience, though, Namco has released the regular version in many services including a very fun, free version with ads you can get for most devices. If none of this work for you, keep in mind this game has just so many clones, there has to be one somewhere out there for you – it’s just a matter of researching. Again, we recommend the TEKKEN Edition because it looks awesome and is incredibly cute.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories at Tiny Galaga Arcade Cabinet Created From Nintendo DS and Honey I’ve Shrunk The Pacman and Galaga Gaming Console!

 

Charity Arcade Accepts Any Coin Currency as Tokens: Insert Care

If you’ve ever gone abroad you probably had spare coins from the country you visited. You can change it back to your country’s currency or keep it as a memento, but more often than not they’ll just end up stashed in your drawer, “for when you go back.” Sweden’s airport agency Swedavia and the Red Cross have a brilliant suggestion: use those foreign coins as arcade tokens.

charity_arcade_by_swedavia_and_red_cross_1zoom in

Red Cross and Swedavia’s Charity Arcades are currently found at Stockholm Arlanda Airport and Göteborg Landvetter Airport. These interactive donation boxes will let you play Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga or Space Invaders in exchange for any coin. As you may have guessed, all of the proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross.

Add Super Hexagon, Battletoads and I Wanna Be the Guy to the Charity Arcade and they’ll have enough money to end world hunger within an hour. That and destroyed cabinets.

[via Swedavia via Neatorama]

Galaga Pint Glasses

galaga pint glasses Galaga Pint Glasses
Oh Galaga, you evil quarter eating game. Well at least I can drown out my sorrows at losing all those quarters in my youth with a set of these Galaga Pint Glasses. You might say that Galaga was nothing but a Space Invaders ripoff and to that we say….you’re probably right to some extent, but it was a very good ripoff. Best of the second best if you will. I’ll drink to that.

Galaga Pint Glasses

Galaga Fighter Model Kit: From 8-Bit to Real Bits

The classic arcade shooter Galaga celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. That means we’re growing old faster than we think. It also means celebratory trinkets. If you’ve ever wondered what the tiny space fighter would look like in real life, this model kit provides a potential answer.

galaga fighter model kit by wave corp

For comaprison’s sake, here’s a supersized shot of the original ship courtesy of Fanpop:

galaga fighter model kit by wave corp 2

I don’t understand Japanese, but from what I understand the model was designed by Kow Yokoyama, the artist who co-created the popular Maschinen Krieger model series. The ship does have a beat-up look found in MaK models, but again I’m not 100% sure about that bit. One feature that fans will appreciate is that two models can be linked together, a nod to the double shooter mode in the game.

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You can pre-order the Galaga fighter from Rakuten for ¥3,240 (~$40 USD), but don’t think it’ll land on your doorstep right away; Wave Corporation won’t release the toy until March 2013.

[via Wave Corp via CNET]


Galaga Cake: Insert Knife, Not Quarters

Look at this Galaga arcade machine. Wait, that’s no arcade cabinet. That’s a delicious and realistic cake just waiting to enter the bellies of Galaga-loving gaming geeks.

galaga cake 1This amazing achievement in arcade mimicry cake was made by Pink Cake Box in Denville, NJ. It has chocolate and vanilla layers with Oreo buttercream in between. This may be a tall tale, but the story goes that it looked so realistic in person that some Bar Mitzvah party attendees actually attempted to play it.

galaga cake 2

Didn’t they get the hint when the quarters failed to go into the machine? Or when their fingers sank into that sweet fondant icing? I don’t know about you, but I want some Galaga for dessert now.

[via Between the Pages via That's Nerdalicious]


Video Game Cookies: From Pixels to Pastries

If there’s two things in life I love, it’s video games and cookies. I mean, what’s not to like? Apparently, the guys over at Parchment Cookies have the same mentality, and have baked up some epic video game-inspired cookies for us to admire (and eat if we could afford them.)

galaga cookies

These incredibly-detailed cookies are based on classic arcade and console games ranging from Galaga, to Duck Hunt, to Donkey Kong, and look great. The level of detail in the icing is spectacular, and really captures the original games in cookie form. I think my favorite set has to be the Burgertime cookies, since they’re food that depicts a video game, depicting other food – including walking hot dog and a ladder-climbing egg.

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A dozen of these handmade video game cookies will set you back $54(USD), which works out to be $4.50 per cookie. I know a lot of love and labor must go into each of these, so they’re worth it. I just don’t know if I could bring myself to eat them or if I’d just frame them and hang them on the wall. Ok, I’d eat them – all in one sitting.