Galaga was born from Namco's unsold Galaxian arcade boards and a clearance problem

pop & funWikipedia1981 · Japan

Galaga was born from Namco's unsold Galaxian arcade boards and a clearance problem

the gist

Namco had produced so many Galaxian arcade boards that they stopped selling, so the company asked developer Shigeru Yokoyama to make two new games for the same hardware to clear inventory. The first, King & Balloon, was a fixed shooter that is cited as the first video game to include speech. The second, Galaga, ran on newer hardware that Namco's research division suggested. Its signature tractor beam was inspired by a film in which a ship is captured by a circling laser, and enemies that flew off-screen in a bug became the bonus Challenging Stages. Galaga was released in Japan in September 1981 and in North America that November through Midway.

so what

Galaga shows how a business problem, unsold hardware, pushed a designer toward a more ambitious game. Its capture-and-rescue mechanic and bonus stages became templates for later shooters.

fun fact

Galaga's dual-fighter mechanic was partly a workaround: the hardware could display only a limited number of sprites, so the team used smaller sprites to free up room.

Hampi was once one of the world's largest cities, until its Vijayanagara capital was destroyed in 1565

the gist

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.

how it works

The city was built around a fortified core with temples, markets and water structures along the river, supplied by an extensive network of roads and waterworks. When the empire fell, the city was not rebuilt, so its stone monuments were left standing.

so what

Hampi shows how quickly a great city can vanish after a military defeat, and how a ruined capital can remain sacred. Its ruins give historians a view of medieval South Asia that few other sites can match.

fun fact

The name Hampi comes from Pampa, an old name for the Tungabhadra River.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · text CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: Wikimedia Commons

source: Wikipedia ↗

2 min

politicsshortCNA2:01

False allegations about Singapore’s hand in Indonesia’s markets and a made-up meeting

from CNA

CNA Verify has found close to 400 posts pushing falsehoods tying Singapore to Indonesia’s stock market rout and to a secret meeting that never took place. Together, they drew nearly 12 million views, and some were circulated by accounts that appeared to be working in concert, across multiple social media platforms.

Here’s how the disinformation campaign targeting Singapore was uncovered.

on YouTube: CNA ↗