In 1978 Taito released the video game “Space Invaders” and started a worldwide craze. Bally, then one of the biggest pinball manufacturers, answered with a pinball machine riding the hype: in April 1980 “Space Invaders” went into production – a widebody table, wider than standard machines, with room for four flippers.
| Manufacturer | Bally Manufacturing Co., Chicago |
|---|---|
| Production | from April 1980 |
| Units built | approx. 11,400 |
| Design | Jim Patla |
| Artwork | Paul Faris |
| Format | widebody, 4 flippers, 1–4 players |
A pinball for a video game
The table was one of the first pinball machines to license a video game. The playfield has little to do with the arcade game, though: there are no marching rows, just classic pinball mechanics with an invader theme. Paul Faris’ biomechanical artwork is closer to the 1979 film “Alien” than to the pixel aliens in the arcade.
The playfield
- Four flippers: two at the bottom, two smaller ones above – typical for widebody tables of the era.
- The clone chamber: a captive ball in a channel. Shooting it to the top with the playing ball scores 10,000 to 50,000.
- The horseshoe: the central shot through the middle of the playfield and the core of the strategy.
- Drop target with pass-through: once the target drops, a path opens behind it.
- Two bonus systems: the regular bonus plus a separate invader bonus.
The tribute: Invasoren
Invasoren is not a measured replica but an interpretation based on photos of the original, drawn as an engineering sheet. It keeps the defining elements: four flippers, the long clone chamber on the left as a V-lane, the horseshoe, the spinner in the right lane, the drop target and five invader targets. Scoring is simplified; the physics runs at 960 steps per second – here is how.
Sources: Kineticist, Pinball Rebel, Pinside. “Space Invaders” is a trademark of its owners; Invasoren is a non-commercial tribute with no affiliation to Bally, Midway or Taito.