While the average geek has probably never heard the name Tomohiro Nishikado, almost all of you are familiar with his work. In 1978, Nishikado worked as an engineer for Taito, then a manufacturer of Japanese Pachinko games (hybrid pinball/slot machines). Given that almost nobody outside Japan plays Pachinko—nor has likely even seen a Pachinko machine—it's safe to assume that Taito and Nishikado ventured into other enterprises to make their fame.

Drum roll, please: In 1978, Nishikado designed Taito's first and arguably most famous video game: Space Invaders. The rest, as they say, is history.

Space Invaders became an international phenomenon, joining hands with Pac-Man to create the arcade video game sensation of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Japan actually had to increase its circulating supply of coin yen to meet the demand caused by Space Invaders.

(Preemptive counter-quibble: For all those arcade aficionados out there who remember Space Invaders as a Midway or Bally product, you're right. Taito licensed Space Invaders for U.S. release to Midway, which was a division of Bally. The distinctions don't stop at the nameplates, however. The original Japanese Taito arcade uprights had joystick controls, while the original U.S. Midway uprights had directional button controls. For anyone looking to score a classic Space Invaders upright on eBay, the Trivia Geek endorses the Taito joystick version due to its superior gameplay, side-panel art, and display.)

What you probably don't know about Space Invaders is that when Nishikado originally set out to design the game, it wasn't actually about invaders from outer space. Nishikado's first plans for the game involved shooting down conventional airplanes or tanks, but rendering recognizable war machines with the available graphics technology—an Intel 8080 processor running at 2 MHz powered an original Space Invaders upright—proved infeasible.

Instead, Nishikado decided to use easily pixilated alien monsters as his game targets, and he based their initial designs on the extraterrestrial antagonists featured in a classic work of science fiction.

WHAT SCIENCE-FICTION WORK INSPIRED THE ALIEN DESIGNS IN THE ORIGINAL SPACE INVADERS VIDEO GAME?

What classic work of science fiction did game developer Tomohiro Nishikado draw upon as a reference for his alien monster designs in the classic arcade video game Space Invaders?

In a 2005 interview with Edge magazine, Nishikado divulged that H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds inspired the alien antagonists in Space Invaders:

"In the story, the alien looked like an octopus. I drew a bitmap image based on the idea. Then I created several other aliens that look like sea creatures such as squid or crab."

When looking at a screenshot of the original Space Invaders graphics, the aquatic reference is noticeable. Still, if this doesn't jive with your cherished arcade recollections, there may be a reason.

Much of the original Space Invaders arcade panel art depicted decidedly non-marine alien beasts. Nishikado threw in another bit of trivia to perhaps explain why that was the case (no pun intended):

"Perhaps it was made that way because the game was originally titled Space Monster. The graphic designer was probably inspired by the sound of it."

While the literary allusion within Space Invaders may have been lost on the public, it did nothing to stifle the game's popularity or cultural impact. More than a dozen Space Invaders ports, parodies, revamps, and sequels have appeared since the original's 1978 release, with some incarnation of the game appearing on virtually every major personal computer or gaming platform released in the last three decades.

Indeed, Space Invaders has proven to be such a cultural touchstone that not even the complete computer gaming universe can contain it. A guerilla street artist named Invader has inspired a legion of Space Invaders fans to fashion mosaic tile homages to the games' pixilated aliens (as well as characters from other contemporary video games) and foist them upon walls and structures within public spaces around the world.

The practice has evolved into something of an urban counterculture sport, all of it documented on the Invader's Urban Invasion Web site. That's not just an overachievement of fandom, boys and girls, that's avant-garde Geek Trivia.

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The Quibble of the Week

If you uncover a questionable fact or debatable aspect of this week's Geek Trivia, just post it in the discussion area of the article. Every week, yours truly will choose the best post from the assembled masses and discuss it in the next edition of Geek Trivia.

This week's quibble comes from the April 12 edition of Geek Trivia, "Shedding some (laser) light." TechRepublic member David.kolb busted me for claiming Einstein only wrote four physics papers during his legendary "Year of Wonders."

"The correct number of papers from 1905 is five, not four. Einstein published a fifth paper that is often overlooked on molecular dimensions."

Toss me (and Wikipedia) in as being guilty of overlooking the molecular dimensions paper. Thanks for the correction, and keep those quibbles coming.

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The Trivia Geek, also known as Jay Garmon, is a former advertising copywriter and Web developer who's duped TechRepublic into underwriting his affinity for movies, sci-fi, comic books, technology, and all things geekish or subcultural.