Imagine creating the highest-grossing entertainment product of your era, being contractually forbidden from taking credit, and being bad at playing it yourself. This episode explores the life and mind of Tomohiro Nishikado, the lone-wolf Taito designer behind Space Invaders. Working in a 1970s arcade landscape dominated by pinball and literal sports simulations, Nishikado wanted to capture the mounting tension of Atari's Breakout inside a shooting gallery. Tanks and planes were too complex for the hardware to animate, marching soldiers would have been easy, but he refused to make a game about shooting humans. Inspired by Space Battleship Yamato, a magazine feature on Star Wars, and The War of the Worlds, he drew pixelated octopuses, crabs, and squids with a light pen.

The hosts detail the staggering technical hurdles: six months hand-transl ...