What *is* Defender? (Defender World Record Saga - Part Two Of Five)

Let's take a look at what we're talking about here. 

OVERVIEW

Defender is an arcade game made by Williams Electronics in 1980. It is, essentially, a test to see how long you can stop aliens from overtaking Earth. You "defend" 10 humans from being mutated into aliens themselves. If you lose all of your humans, you enter "space," which is incredibly difficult to exit to get back to Earth. If you lose all your ships, you die, and Earth is defeated. Game Over.

The crazy controls

Defender is played by pressing 5 separate buttons with unique actions and an up / down lever on an arcade control panel. One token is worth 3 ships and 3 Smart Bombs, and every 10,000 points awards one ship/Smart Bomb combo.

When I see this, I get excited.
New players get overwhelmed.

Here is the description stolen straight from Wikipedia: Defender is a two-dimensional side-scrolling shooting game set on the surface of an unnamed planet. The player controls a space ship as it navigates the terrain, flying either to the left or right. A joystick controls the ship's elevation, and five buttons control its horizontal direction and weapons. The object is to destroy alien invaders, while protecting astronauts on the landscape from abduction. Humans that are successfully abducted return as mutants that attack the ship. Defeating the aliens allows the player to progress to the next level. Failing to protect the astronauts, however, causes the planet to explode and the level to become populated with mutants. Surviving the waves of mutants results in the restoration of the planet. Players are allotted three chances (lives) to progress through the game and are able to earn more by reaching certain scoring benchmarks. A life is lost if the ship comes into contact with an enemy or its projectiles. After exhausting all lives, the game ends.

Only 225 points on
my first game? What a
waste of a quarter!

In their short description of the "5 buttons," they forgot to say that a Smart Bomb destroys all enemies on screen and leaves their bullets and bombs behind.

And they forgot to say that Hyperspace teleports your ship to a random place on the planet, including potentially landing on top of enemies or their bombs. Or maybe you just die when you land. It's random. 

If you haven't figured it out yet, this thing is HARD to play. Really hard to play.

To learn how to play it, you really have to watch others do it. It will throw you off like a mad rodeo bull otherwise.

WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME WHAT DEFENDER IS?
While I want to believe that people understand the game, this thing is 33 years old and people just don't have the pop culture references that they used to have. When I was streaming the record attempt live, I spent quite a while explaining how the game was played and why you wanted to "save the humans."

If you can't see someone
play Defender as an example,
you're gonna have
a bad time

Many current day game players don't understand what the game is, and honestly I had never realized it, but DEFENDER DOES NOT TEACH YOU HOW TO PLAY DEFENDER. What?!? I am trying to say that if you stood in front of the machine, you would have NO idea what to do, why you do it, and how to do it. Essentially, the "attract mode" of Defender doesn't tell you ANYTHING about the game. It shows you the enemies and the high scores. The rest is UP TO YOU to figure out.
When you have never played Defender, you WILL be overwhelmed. It's a guarantee. Defender is a game that requires you to learn how to play completely on your own. You must watch other people succeed in order to advance your play. Oddly, even though you might think that Defender was a competitive game, learning to play it really became a co-operative experience. That was how you saved your quarters!

WHY IS A "MARATHON" ON DEFENDER DIFFERENT THAN CURRENT DAY GAMES?

I've been told that "when (new shooter X) came out, I played the game for 48 hours," and therefore doing a "marathon" isn't a big deal.

I beg to differ.

These games have
pause buttons and
aren't trying to take
your quarters

Console games do not have the goal of killing you so you'll put in another quarter. Arcade machines are TRYING to buck you off the controls. Remember that bull from above?

They try to make the experience reasonable so you can take breaks, check your inventory, go to the bathroom, eat, etc.

On Defender:
- You have no pause button.
- If you are not "playing," i.e. you leave the machine, you lose a life every 7 seconds.
- You really don't have time to take a drink, much less take a bit of real food before you lose a life.
- Did I mention that there's no pause button?
Seriously. Come over and I'll show you. This game is a monster.

NEXT UP: NON-GAMING-RELATED PREPARATION
PREVIOUS: WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT DEFENDER?

Want to read each part? Well, here's your chance!
PART ONE: WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT DEFENDER?
PART TWO: WHAT *IS* DEFENDER?
PART THREE: NON-GAMING-RELATED PREPARATION
PART FOUR: SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL PREPARATION
PART FIVE: THE ATTEMPT, FINAL THOUGHTS AND RESULTS