| In one line | A 2D image moved around the screen - The snake segments, aliens and frogs of this world. |
|---|---|
| Spotted in | Space Invaders, Freeway Frog, Snake |
| Related ideas | Hitbox, Frame, Pixel-perfect |
The Full Story
A sprite is a 2D image the game moves around the screen as a single object: the alien, the frog, the paddle, each segment of the snake. The word comes from early graphics hardware that composited these small images over the background 'like spirits', without redrawing the whole screen, which is exactly the ghostly trick the name suggests.
Sprites defined the aesthetic of an entire era. Hardware limits fixed their size and color counts, so artists learned to say 'threatening alien' in a 16 by 16 grid of pixels. Those constraints bred icons: shapes so distilled they read instantly at a glance from across a noisy arcade, which is precisely what a good sprite must do.
Everything you dodge, eat and shoot on this site is a sprite in spirit, drawn fresh each frame on a canvas. The visible sprite is also only half the story: collisions use the invisible hitbox underneath, which is usually a slightly different size. Learning the difference between what a sprite shows and what it touches is a core arcade skill.
Heard on the Arcade Floor
“The boss sprite is huge, but its hitbox is only the cockpit; aim there and ignore the wings.”
Where You'll Feel Sprite on This Floor
Definitions stick better with a joystick in hand, and sprite is live machinery in 3 of our machines, starting with Space Invaders:
- Space Invaders (five rows of aliens, one cannon, zero room for panic) - shoot down the descending alien formation before it reaches your cannon, and sprite helps decide whether you manage it.
- Freeway Frog (five lanes of traffic, one very brave frog) - hop across busy lanes and a hazardous river to reach the lily pads, with sprite doing quiet work underneath.
- Snake (eat, grow, and never bite your own tail) - eat food to grow the longest snake you can without hitting a wall or yourself, where sprite shows up on every single run.
Five minutes inside Space Invaders and sprite stops being theory.
