Musical Space Invaders

Musical Space Invaders 2.0 is David Bagno's reinvention of the 1978 arcade icon as a sight-reading drill -- a Macintosh shareware title first released in 1993 and refreshed at the turn of the millennium for the iBook, iMac, and G4 generation, complete with USB MIDI support and a roomy 800x600 playfield.

Concept

Notes descend the staff in place of marching aliens. Players shoot them down by playing the correct pitch, either on an attached MIDI keyboard or on the on-screen graphic piano, training eye-hand coordination and rapid sight-reading in an arcade wrapper that suits all ages and skill levels.

Lessons and Tracking

The application ships as a complete teaching tool: instructors can author unlimited reusable customized lessons and track student progress in a built-in grade database, making it as much a music classroom utility as a game.

Big-Screen Notation

Version 2.0 commits to an 800x600 minimum so notes can be drawn at full size, easy on the eyes and large enough to leave room for the full graphic piano alongside -- usable without any external MIDI hardware.

Sound and Compatibility

Audio runs through Apple's QuickTime 4.0 with the QuickTime Musical Instruments extension, so no external synthesizer is required. MIDI keyboards work via Apple's MIDI Manager or Opcode's OMS. System 7.0 or later, an 800x600 color display, and roughly 6 MB of memory for the application.