Space Invaders Stole My Attention Span!

It was a time long ago. Before mobile phones and satellite television. Before daytime TV and phising attacks. Before celebrity makeover golf-opera competition phone ins. Before social networking viral antidotes.

Before pretty much everything you care about today, in fact.

A winter’s afternoon in south Wales, a Space Invaders clone played on a Texas Instruments games console in a friend’s house. “Like a go, Col?” my friend asked.
I picked up the joystick, moved it. A graphic moved on screen. Something inside my head shifted forever. I moved the joystick again, the graphic moved the other way. There was a rough explosion sound and I lost a life. That didn’t matter. Something very small had moved. My world had changed, in an instant.

I realised that cartoons on a screen could be controlled by a player. But more than that, I saw that a game, a story, a comic, a song, could be changed by the person experiencing it.

I knew what I had to do.



Next scheduled post: Tuesday 13th