Enemies will make a divebomb towards the bottom of the screen while shooting projectiles in an attempt to hit the player.

The enemies appear in formation towards the top of the screen, with two escort ships, labeled the 'Galaxian Flagship' or 'Galboss'.

Retrogaming, also known as classic gaming and old school gaming, is the playing of older video game consoles, and/or video games (generally arcade), in contemporary times using emulators.The player controls a starship called the Galaxip, the objective being to clear each round of aliens. The arcade game industry truly entered its “ Golden Age” in the late 70’s and early 80’s,with consumer awareness and market penetration of video arcade machines in bars, pubs, malls, storefronts and restaurants rising rapidly with introductions of such classic video arcade machines like Asteroids, Space Invaders, Galaxian, Donkey Kong, and the timeless video arcade classic game, Pac-Man. Other prominent arcade companies such as Sega, Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Taito, Williams, Bally / Midway Manufacturing Company, Cinematronics and SNK were among many others also played major roles in the early development of the video arcade game industry. These two companies wrestled for the top slot in American video arcades for several years. The two most successful arcade game companies of this era were Namco (the Japanese company that created Pac-Man, Pole Position, and Dig Dug) and Atari (the US-based firm that first introduced video games into arcades). At the same time, video games started to appear in supermarkets, restaurants, bars, pubs, liquor stores, gas stations, bowling alleys storefronts and many other retail establishments looking for extra income and customer traffic.Very popular video arcade games would more than on occasion cause a crush of teenagers at arcades, eager to try the latest in public entertainment. This era also saw the rapid spread of video arcades and gamerooms across North America, Europe and Japan. Video arcade games were designed in a wide variety of genres, while game developers had to work within strict limits of available processor power and memory. The Golden Era of Video Games was a time of great technical breakthroughs and game design creativity in arcade games.

Galaxian tabletop arcade game