is a 2008 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Taito initially for mobile phones. An installment of the Space Invaders series, the game blends the series' classic characters and gameplay with the concept of evolution. As the game progresses, new game mechanics become available to the player, modeling iterative changes to the series and genre. In addition to the normal collection of stages, it features challenge and bonus modes of play.
The game was directed by Reisuke Ishida, who sought to showcase the series' evolution and pique interest in the shoot 'em up genre. Several elements drew inspiration from previous Taito arcade shoot 'em ups as an homage to the genre. The director implemented "retro-futuristic" audiovisuals, which drew heavily from electronic music. Infinity Genes music was created by Taito's band, Zuntata, with Hirokazu Koshio handling the sound design.
Soon after releasing for feature phones in Japan, the company published iPhone and iPod Touch versions in 2009; an iPad version titled Space Invaders Infinity Gene HD followed in 2010. The iOS apps feature touch-screen controls and a music mode that generates stages from songs in the device's music library. Square Enix released the game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles in September 2010. In addition to the music mode, the console versions feature updated visuals with high definition and 3D graphics. An Android version was released in September 2011. The game was removed from the Apple App Store in 2017, and Taito released a remake titled exclusively for Apple Arcade in 2025.
The iPhone release won several awards and was met with universal critical acclaim. Common points of praise included the touch controls, minimalist aesthetics, soundtrack, and music library integration. Criticism focused on enemies being obscured by the monochromatic visuals. The console versions were rated lower than the iOS releases but were received positively, specifically towards the changes related to adapting the game to consoles. Infinity Genes success impacted Taito's approach to mobile phone games. Music from the game was included in the company's later projects.
Gameplay
Space Invaders Infinity Gene is a shoot 'em up video game with a theme of evolution. The player controls a ship as it battles against various invader aliens and large space ships. The first stage is based on the original 1978 Space Invaders arcade game, where rows of alien invaders descend towards a laser cannon that can move only horizontally. After completing it, a Charles Darwin quote about evolution displays before progressing to the next level. As the player advances, new gameplay mechanics become available. Completing levels and obtaining high scores fill a gene gauge; completely filling the gauge triggers an "evolution" that unlocks new game elements. Unlocked elements include vertical movement, options for weapon upgrades, background music, and other aspects that expand the game.
Weapon upgrades include "Lock-On", which changes the projectiles' path towards targets, and "Gravity", which explodes into a vortex that attracts nearby enemies to cause them damage. Additional abilities that can be unlocked include chaining enemy kills to increase the score and The term "Nagoya shooting" originated as a gameplay exploit of a software bug in the original 1978 Space Invaders arcade. which allows the player to attack enemies at close range without taking damage for additional points. During the game, the player can shoot the classic mystery ships to release power-ups, which increase their selected weapon's effectiveness when collected. The power-ups scatter if the player's ship is destroyed. As the game progresses, enemies become larger and bosses appear at the end of levels. Adversaries' movements and attacks become more complex in later stages.
Beyond the normal method of play, the game has additional modes: Challenge Mode, which features 99 challenge stages; Bonus Mode, which has levels that are unlocked through evolution; and Music Mode, in which levels are generated from music tracks found on the player's device. The iOS and Android versions feature touch controls; the player moves their finger along the screen to change the position of the ship, which continually fires automatically. The console releases use a gamepad to control the ship. Scores are tracked via online leaderboards.
Development Space Invaders Infinity Gene was developed by Taito, with Reisuke Ishida as the director. He had previously worked primarily on Taito's mobile phone games, such as Trance Pinball, a pinball game with musical elements. A fan of the Space Invaders series and shooting games, several of the director's previous mobile games included Space Invaders characters. Infinity Gene was developed for the 30th anniversary of the original game. Ishida's boss approached him about submitting a proposal, which was ultimately approved. He was aided by Taito programmers, who created the game's script converters and data compression tools used during development, and sound designer Hirokazu Koshio. The company's band, Zuntata, created the game's music.
Because Taito was also developing Space Invaders Extreme at the time, Ishida wanted Infinity Gene to be as different as possible and decided on an unconventional and experimental approach. Additionally, the company chose to release a mobile phone game since Extreme was releasing on consoles. Rather than be about defending the planet from invading aliens, the director wanted the premise to be about the Space Invaders series as a whole. In retrospect, he considered the game to be the "crystallization of [his] thoughts and feelings about Space Invaders and its monumental role in gaming history."
To achieve mass appeal, Ishida considered multiple player perspectives during the design process. While he believed the invader characters had become iconic, he questioned how many people in the then-current generation had played the original and what are players' impressions from their first experiences. Realizing that younger generations may be familiar with the characters but not the gameplay, Ishida wanted to convey the evolution of Space Invaders and made that the game's theme. The director also felt this would be a good way to introduce the original game to younger players. He then researched evolution in general and integrated his findings into the game; for example, stage names and terminology reference evolution and the menus resemble phylogenetic trees. The development team selected the name "Infinity Gene" to invoke the idea of continuous evolution in order to reflect the overall theme. Ishida hoped that showcasing the series' advancement from its original form to a modern one would increase interest in the shoot 'em up genre.
Gameplay design Ishida considered the evolution aspect of the gameplay the most challenging and critical aspect of development. The initial plan featured branching evolutionary paths. The director contemplated different approaches with this design, such as allowing the player to choose their own path or automatically selecting abilities for the player as the game progressed, but felt they disrupted the game's tempo and added unneeded stress onto the player. Because he felt players would be unsatisfied with only a subset of abilities, he allowed the player to choose options after they are unlocked, which he believed had wider appeal. New features are gradually made accessible as the game progresses to provide motivation and avoid overwhelming casual players.
The director was inspired by many games in the shoot 'em up genre. He also incorporated elements from Taito shooting arcade games: the 1987 Darius, the 1991 Metal Black, which he noted also has an element of evolution, and the 1994 RayForce as well as its sequels. He felt the Ray series balanced gameplay with appealing graphics very well and drew inspiration from enemy algorithms, background scrolling mechanics, shooting weapons, and the visuals.
Ishida avoided the style of gameplay because he felt it would have limited the game's audience. He wanted Infinity Gene to serve as an introductory shooting game and believed that the intense difficulty of bullet hell games discouraged beginners. Instead, Ishida aimed to capture the "flashiness" of the genre in the game's visuals. He believed a very visually-oriented game would appeal to both non-gamers and gamers. Furthermore, Ishida believed that providing exaggerated reactions create a fulfilling experience for players. To increase the "fun and exhilaration", he wanted the game to only look like it has extremely intense battles. The staff applied this to the different game modes, with an emphasis on the Music Mode.
Audiovisual design In designing the gameplay, Ishida felt that simply combining the classic elements of Space Invaders with newer ones from Trance Pinball would not resonate well with contemporary games and decided that updated visuals were necessary to successfully mix the elements. The director also handled Infinity Genes graphical design and applied an atmosphere similar to Trance Pinball. With "new, yet nostalgic" and "retro-futuristic" as the game's key design concepts, Ishida aimed to have the game's lineage recognizable within the graphics and included the original invader characters in most every stage. He also worried that excluding the characters would distance the game too far from the franchise; however, Ishida omitted them from the final levels of the stages to give those levels a different feel. Visual inspiration was also drawn from music videos for techno songs. During development, Ishida experimented with bright colors for the enemies. However, he felt the visuals looked too similar to other games in the genre and pursued a monochromatic design to distinguish the game from others.
As a fan of rhythm games, he wanted to fuse the musical and visual aspects of the game and include direct interaction between the two—a general goal Ishida had since joining Taito around prior. From the beginning, the director wanted the game to have a "solid, cool techno sound" and had electronic music in mind when planning the aesthetics. He worked with Koshio regularly to balance the music and gave directions, which in retrospect, Ishida felt put a lot of pressure on the sound designer. Because of the game's nontraditional story, Ishida instructed Koshio to eschew melodies, which he deemed too emotional for the design, in favor of more digital sounds. The sound designer used FM synthesis, which was widespread technology in mobile phones at the time, to generate the sound effects. Additionally, Koshio felt such sounds captured the retro feel of the original Space Invaders arcade and avoided making sound effects realistic. In keeping with the evolution theme, each song has three versions that begin as beep-based music and graduate to contemporary electronica.
Release and ports
Space Invaders Infinity Gene was originally distributed in Japan as a Java game on feature mobile phones in 2008 as part of the original's 30th anniversary celebration. Taito released it via the i-mode and mobile internet services on December 17, 2008. The corporation soon after released the game on iPhone and iPod Touch devices on July 28, 2009. Unfamiliar with the Apple App Store market, it did not set high sales goals at the time.