Alien Invasion

The line never got faster because you were losing. It got faster because you were winning, and that is the cruellest thing an arcade cabinet ever did to a ten year old.

Alien Invasion puts that march on your Stream Deck. A block of invaders steps sideways one key at a time, flips its legs on every step, reaches the edge and drops a row closer to the single cannon holding the bottom. Bombs come down. The shields in front of the cannon get chewed away from above and from below, because the cannon's own shots take bites out of them too, exactly the way they always did. A red saucer runs the top row. The last stand goes the way last stands go, the sky restocks, and it starts again.

Here is what separates this from every other animated Stream Deck screensaver on the market. Those are videos. Somebody animated a loop once, exported it, and that same file has been playing the same choreography ever since. This one is a simulation. The cannon is genuinely aiming and genuinely allowed only one shot in flight at a time, so it has to wait for a miss to clear the top of the screen before it can try again. The formation speeds up as it thins out because the pace is calculated from how many invaders are still alive, which is why the last one left darts across the deck like it has somewhere to be. Nothing here is keyframed. What you are watching is the recording of a game that actually played out, once, in code.

You get three files, one for each deck, so you install the right shape and nothing comes out stretched: Stream Deck MK.2 and the original 15 key deck at 480x272, Stream Deck XL at 1024x600, and Stream Deck Plus at 800x480. Each is a 90 second loop running at 25 frames per second, and the last frame is the first frame, so it wraps without the jolt that gives most animated screensavers away. Also included is an illustrated install guide as a web page and the same instructions in plain text, because a digital download that arrives with no explanation is just a file.

What that gets you is a desk nobody else has. Your Stream Deck sits idle for most of the day looking like fifteen switched-off buttons, and this is ninety seconds of the arcade running across it instead. On camera it is a conversation starter that costs you no screen space, no overlay and no CPU: the deck plays it, not your machine. Somebody will ask you about it inside a week. That is roughly the entire point.

Installing takes about a minute. Gear icon, Devices, "Set Screensaver...", drop the file in, click Set Animation. The guide walks it through with pictures, including the one mistake everybody makes, and if you get stuck you are messaging the person who wrote the code, not a support queue.

Every animation in this pack is drawn from scratch in code. No traced artwork, no stock footage, no third party assets. Original work inspired by the golden age of the arcade.

Grab it, and give the deck something to do while you are not looking at it.

Works with: Stream Deck MK.2, the original 15 key Stream Deck, Stream Deck XL, Stream Deck Plus. Requires Stream Deck software 6.6 or newer, which is a free update. Stream Deck Mini and Neo are not covered. This is a digital download, so nothing ships.

Not affiliated with, licensed by or endorsed by Elgato, or by the publisher of any arcade game. Stream Deck is a product of Elgato.

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