Indian Battle

General Information

Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
Systems: Arcade Cabinet
Year of release: 1980
Genre: Fixed Shooter
TCU Archive Access: No
Outside Access: Extremely Rare

Time period: Past
Location: America
Tribe: Unnamed
Character Types: Enemy NPCs

“Your only protection is your rifle. How long can you defend your ranch?”

– Trade Flyer for Indian Battle arcade cabinet

Overview

Indian Battle is a very straightforward and simple arcade shooter with gameplay reminiscent of Space Invaders. The representation of the Native characters, the main enemy in the game, contains almost no detail. No tribes are named and no motivation is given for the “raid” on the player character’s ranch. Moreover, these details (first, that it is a raid; second, that players are defending their ranch) are only provided in the trade flyer below and not in the game itself.

Description

While the game’s narrative is incredibly limited, the use of tropes from the Western genre of media is clear. The decorations on the arcade cabinet (image below) make allusions to the culture of plains Indians, though no tribes are specifically named. The graphics in the game itself are incredibly rudimentary (which is understandable for the time period and platform). The Museum of the Game website ranks the game “a 0 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records”. Because the game was not widely circulated, there is little other media to draw on, either in the form of developer commentary or reviews.

Gameplay Notes

The game is generally inaccessible for play. As a less popular arcade game, few cabinets still exist. Several youtube videos featuring gameplay are available. The game features two modes. In the first mode, the player moves back and forth across the bottom of the screen shooting up at the nameless Native American antagonists who move across the top of the screen shooting toward the player and sometimes travel down the screen. Players must also avoid hitting a covered wagon that passes along the lower part of the screen intermintantly during the battle. There are two types of Indigenous enemy: one on foot with a tomahawk and one on horseback with a bow. Players must also shoot a condor who, if not shot, will drop an egg hatching a scorpion. In the second mode, platers “show [their] skill” by lassoing “cows, horses, and rabbits to cheer [themselves] up” (Trade Flyer). There are five rounds and the game records high scores.

Reception and Research

Indian Battle has fairly little material in the way of reception. It is commonly sited in scholarly research as the first known video game with Native American characters, but as a simple game with limited depiction and narrative there remains little analysis or in depth stufy of the game.

Media and Paratexts

Many of the images in this article, including the trade flyer below, are courtesy of the Museum of the Game

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w.sierra

Tags:

1980’s Games, Arcade, Indigenous NPCs, Shooter