Talk:Space Invaders
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I question the accuracy of the paragraph:
- the remaining aliens would move faster and faster...
If the computer was just updating the screen more often, the shot and player's base would move faster as well, but they didn't. They moved at the same speed throughout the level's progression. So some elegant programming had to be involved in the implementation of this feature. Anyone else? —Frecklefoot 19:31, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- It's surely true that there was some clever programming going on, but I'm not clear as to what exactly you are questioning. Nobody seems to be claiming that a particular programming technique was used; in any event it's absolutely true that the remaining aliens moved faster. What's to question? Jgm 00:58, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Update Speed
I have to agree with the previous poster. I once had a job programming video games in the early 80s, and although the processors were pretty pathetic, the situation regarding update speed is more complex than that the main update loop is speeding up simply because it has fewer entities to update. Trying to update a full screen of aliens at the speed of the last alien would probably choke the processor, but as the previous poster has noted, only the final alien is moving faster at the end of a round; the shots, the saucers, and the player's ship are all moving at the same speed. Only a careful inspection of the code could determine exactly how the speedup is accomplished, but in my shop, it was standard practice to implement an round-robin master routine, which would poll the controls, tick the game model, update the display, and then sleep for a few milliseconds.
- That paragraph seemed bad to me too... I'd like to see some sources before allowing it in the article. --Yoshi348 17:13, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
More on the speed up issue
Also, when there is only one alien on the screen, the alien moves at a different speed going to the left, than it does going to the right, and the player's ship moves the same during this whole time.