The Digital Leap

In the early 1970s, arcades up to that point were run by games that were mainly mechanical or electro-mechanical, such as pinball machines. But with the advent of microprocessors a few years prior, pinball machines have been able to become more sophisticated and have more advanced objectives and whatnot. Video arcade games, which have only existed since the start of the decade, have also been able to evolve with the invention of CPUs. Until then, these machines were comprised of transistor-transistor logic chips or other components that didn't allow for complex games at all. One relatively new amusement machine manufacturer called Magnetic Corporation of America, made their very first arcade game called Paddle-Ball in 1973. If the name didn't give it away, it's entirely a clone of Atari's Pong. The next year, the company reincorporated as Williams Electronics. For whatever reason, they decided to just stick with pinball games for the rest of the decade. It wasn't until the early 1980s that they revisited video arcade games when those by Nintendo, Namco, others by Atari, and Taito inspired them to get a piece of market share.

Finite Territory

The original plan for Williams Electronics' first game was to create a version Space Invaders with some new features. When this didn't work out due to lacking enjoyment, they shifted to a color version of Asteroids. But because the hardware they were using worked with pixel-based graphics and also lacked enjoyment, they abandoned their attempt at pixelated Asteroids as well. That's when the team decided to create a new and original game. As the developers thought about what made Asteroids stand out, they cited the element of wraparound. As Asteroids defined it, this is where the player can move off one extreme of the screen and reappear from the opposite. For their new game, this element was made so the game world is larger than the screen could show at once. This meant making it so the player could fly infinitely in one direction and cycle the whole environment time and time again.

Survival of the Fittest

Eventually, Jarvis wanted lots of action and for there to be a concrete objective to the game, besides survival. They also added astronauts to the ground for the player to defend and to cater to the space theme. When the team added a planetscape to the bottom of the screen, it was only a pixel thick due to hardware limitations not allowing anything more sophisticated.

Passive & Aggressive

The enemies were also a big point of Defender's development. Landers were programmed to come down to the bottom and capture the astronauts, then consume them to become a new enemy called a mutant, which charged and descended upon the player in this state. This resulted in an element of rescuing the astronauts before the landers can get to them, earning the player a bonus depending on how many are left when all landers are destroyed. Jarvis felt this would encourage players to continue playing. The element of making a "comeback" from a dire situation was applied to the planet as well. "Bombers", enemies which release floating bombs on the screen, were added next. Over time, more enemies were added to create extra gameplay elements. "Swarmers" and "Pods" were designed to attack the player. "Baiters" were included to add pressure and implore the player to complete the level quickly. The enemies quickly follow the spaceship to collide with it, like the asteroids in...Asteroids.

Landing Time

In 1980, Defender was shown off at the American & Music Operators Association, where it got little attention by patrons. When it was playtested, it attracted a decent-sized crowd. Eventually, when it was released on November 10, it became so popular that it sold over 55,000 units and grossed over a billion dollars worldwide!