A prehistoric shark, a throwaway line in The Avengers, and a submarine on the island in Lost all point back to the same 1981 arcade game. This deep dive tells the story of Galaga, which began as a corporate mandate to use up a warehouse full of unsold Galaxian circuit boards and became one of the defining titles of the golden age of arcades, staying on North American sales charts until April 1987.

We follow developer Shigeru Yokoyama from King and Balloon to the new Namco Galaga hardware, the sci-fi movie that inspired the Boss Galaga tractor beam, and the dual fighter mechanic that asked players to sacrifice a ship to double their firepower. We explain the sprite trick that made two ships render as one to keep the board from crashing, the pathing bug programmer Tetsu Ogawa turned into the challenging stages, Namco president Masaya Nakamura ...