Heiankyo Alien

Did You Know?

• The arcade system board was a copied version of the one used by Sega's Head On, leading to many units being "copies of a copy" by other companies.
• The Japanese manga Game Center Arashi featured a story based on Heiankyo Alien, and author Misuru Sugaya has stated it remains his favorite game.
• In 1980, Heiankyo Alien was the seventh highest-grossing arcade game in Japan.

Gameplay

The player controls a Heian period police officer defending the capital city from an alien invasion by digging holes and filling them after an alien falls in. Points are scored for each trapped alien, with higher points awarded for faster hole-filling. The game contains nine levels; aliens increase in number as levels progress, and they can escape from holes after a time or if another alien passes above. Contact with an alien causes the player to lose. Each level has a time limit, and exceeding it drastically increases the number of aliens, preventing completion. After all nine levels are cleared, the game restarts from level one. High scores allow the player to enter a name using a unique cursor system where the character walks through streets displaying letters. A two-player mode offers alternating turns or simultaneous play on the same screen.

Development

Heiankyo Alien was created by the Theoretical Science Group, a small student group at the University of Tokyo established in 1959 that focused on computer science and soldering. After the Japanese video game market cooled following Space Invaders, a column in Weekly Asahi magazine named "Dekigotorogy" ran a feature seeking the next hit game, visiting computer clubs. The group visited the Toudai PC Club and then the Theoretical Science Group, initially finding their games uninspiring. Over two days, the group brainstormed ideas in the student union building. Itaru Kawakami conceived the game, originally themed around trapping cockroaches in a house. The idea was revised to restrict movement, making the playfield resemble a Go board. Cockroaches became aliens due to the film Alien's release, and the board was tweaked to resemble a cityscape, ultimately based on Heian-kyō, with the player as a Heian period police officer. The idea was submitted to Weekly Asahi and published. The group programmed it on an Apple II, but poor optimization led to a rework using low-resolution mode with colored blocks.

Ports

Meldac released a Game Boy version in Japan and North America in 1990, which includes a remake with a new alien type that chases the player. Nichibutsu ported the game to the Super Famicom in 1995 as Nichibutsu Arcade Classics 2: Heiankyo Alien, having previously released a licensed remake titled Kid no Hore Hore Daisakusen. In 2017, two further ports appeared: NEO Heiankyo Alien by Columbus Circle for Famicom, and an official remaster Heiankyo Alien 3671 by Mindware on Steam. In 2021, Mindware and exA-Arcadia released an enhanced arcade version, Cosmic Digger 3671, outside Japan, supporting up to four players simultaneously and both 4:3 and 16:9 monitors, with modified controls and new items.

Legacy

Heiankyo Alien is an early maze chase game that came out before Pac-Man. It started a genre of digging and trap-based games. Many unlicensed arcade copies exist with different background colors and sound effects. Taito made a version with a light-blue background and reused sounds from Head On, but it is unclear if this was an official release. Hōei Sangyō, now Banpresto, created Time Alien, where aliens move faster but the game slows down when digging or filling holes. Later games in this genre include Space Panic, its clones like Apple Panic, Lode Runner, Doraemon Meikyū Daisakusen, and Boomer's Adventure in ASMIK World. The VIC-20 and MAX Machine cartridge Super Alien is a direct clone.