Taito’s arcade game Space Invaders displays its standard alien formation in five rows.
The formation contains five different alien rows arranged above the player’s laser cannon. Each row uses a distinct enemy design and scoring value, with the lowest aliens generally worth the fewest points and the highest aliens worth the most. The aliens move horizontally across the screen, descending whenever they reach an edge.
The original 1978 game was designed by Tomohiro Nishikado and became one of the defining early fixed-shooter arcade games. Its gradually increasing speed created pressure as players eliminated more enemies, because fewer remaining aliens moved faster. The game also introduced recognizable defensive shields and a periodically moving bonus target.
A common mix-up is confusing the five rows with the formation’s eleven columns. Together, they create 55 aliens at the start of a standard screen. Later versions and ports sometimes changed presentation or gameplay details, but the original arrangement is the familiar five-by-eleven block.