Galaga

ABOUT

Galaga, the fourth book in the Boss Fight Books series, written by the novelist Michael Kimball and published on 1 July 2014. At 136 pages it is a single-game monograph on Namco's 1981 fixed shooter, and the only conventionally trade-published English book devoted to a single shmup.

Kimball, author of the novels Big Ray, Dear Everybody and Us, writes as a lifelong Galaga player. The book mixes an account of the game's design, the faster firing, bonus rounds, tractor beams and enemy behaviour that carried it past Space Invaders, with its cultural afterlife of sequels, clones and screen appearances, practical play advice, and a memoir of a difficult childhood the game helped him through. Reviewers noted its fragmented construction, one describing the book as exploding its subject into 256 short pieces. It was named among LitReactor's best books of 2014.

For shmup players it is the genre's one crossover into literary nonfiction, an argument that a fixed shooter can bear the weight of a memoir.

DESCRIPTION

For fifteen seconds of one of the highest-grossing films of all time, The Avengers’ plan to save the world comes to a grinding halt when Tony Stark calls out a low-level member of S.H.I.E.L.D. for playing Galaga on the job. Acclaimed novelist and lifelong Galaga player Michael Kimball knows the compulsion: He’s set and re-set high scores on Galaga machines all across America. What many call the greatest fixed shooter arcade game in history, Galaga broke the Space Invaders mold with superior graphics, faster firing, bonus rounds, tractor beams, and advanced enemy A.I. Since its 1981 release, Galaga has inspired numerous sequels, bootlegs, hacks, and clones, and some version of Galaga has been released for nearly every gaming platform. Kimball shares his obsession with Galaga through a discussion of the innovative gameplay it introduced (including lots of tips), its extensive cultural legacy (including collectibles, movies, rap songs, drinking games, and sex acts), and how Galaga got Kimball through a difficult childhood--and maybe saved his life.

For fifteen seconds of one of the highest-grossing films of all time, The Avengers’ plan to save the world comes to a grinding halt when Tony Stark calls out a low-level member of S.H.I.E.L.D. for playing Galaga on the job. Acclaimed novelist and lifelong Galaga player Michael Kimball knows the compulsion: He’s set and re-set high scores on Galaga machines all across America. What many call the greatest fixed shooter arcade game in history, Galaga broke the Space Invaders mold with superior graphics, faster firing, bonus rounds, tractor beams, and advanced enemy A.I. Since its 1981 release, Galaga has inspired numerous sequels, bootlegs, hacks, and clones, and some version of Galaga has been released for nearly every gaming platform. Kimball shares his obsession with Galaga through a discussion of the innovative gameplay it introduced (including lots of tips), its extensive cultural legacy (including collectibles, movies, rap songs, drinking games, and sex acts), and how Galaga got Kimball through a difficult childhood--and maybe saved his life.

GAMES IN THIS BOOK

Galaga 1981 Namco Limited

DETAILS

WHERE TO GET IT

Searched by ISBN, so a shop that has this exact edition will show it and one that does not will come back empty. Most of these were printed in Japan and never distributed elsewhere.