it should come as no surprise that i like reimaginings of space invaders that show us the perspective of the invaders, giving these 2d sprites a psychological dimension.

invader the final story (goes to a video, but there’s a download link there) was created for a freebasic game coding competition that required participants build their entries with just sprites and sound effects taken from space invaders.

the game is a story in three acts, with the central act - the part that is played as the invader - framed by scenes which resemble the original space invaders game. i like how much the opening act accomplishes: it’s essentially a variation on space invaders that is both quick (moving us quickly to the middle act, which is the original part of the game) and different enough from space invaders that it isn’t a chore to play. and your destruction of the invaders in that first act catalyzes the events of the rest of the story. the final scene is an inversion of space invaders, of sorts. this is a clever structure.

it’s also clever, of course, how sprites have been given new contexts. check that word balloon above, for example.