Centipede (video game)

Centipede is (English for Centipede ) an arcade game from 1980, published by Atari. It was the first designed by a woman arcade game. Dona Bailey was responsible for the development.

Survey

The player controls a small insect-like figure at the bottom of the screen. The character is controlled using the trackball at the bottom, and Fires laser beams on centipede that move from the top of the screen over a field of mushrooms down. Each hit on a centipede creates another fungus, you meet one of the middle segments, the centipede is divided into two independent parts, which continue on their way separately.

The opponents appear at the top of the screen and move from left to right. Does a centipede a mushroom or the edge of the screen, it will be lowered by one line, and changes direction. For this reason, many fungi mean on the field that move faster opponent down. The player can destroy the mushrooms, but this takes some time to complete, as each of them needed four goals.

Achieved an opponent's end of the playing field, it moves within the range of the player back and forth, and it added to it periodically new segments. This is repeated until the player turns off all segments. If an opponent destroys them appears at the beginning of the playing field, a new, which is a segment shorter than its predecessor. However, this is then accompanied by an additional, fast-moving opponent who is only one segment size. The player loses a "life " when he collides with a centipede or another enemy, such as a spider or a flea. There are also scorpions, which can poison existing fungi, but not attack the player directly. Does a centipede on a poisoned mushroom, it moves directly to the end of the playing field - and thus on the player - to.

Centipede received in 1982 a successor named Millipede, but which was less successful.

Source

The source code of Centipede in the Atari 7800 version was in closing Sunnyvale Atari 1996 in physical form along with Ms. Pac -Man, Dig Dug, Robotron: 2084 and available eight games. Reconstructed by the Atari Museum and later released.

Reactions

Like many other games from Atari, Centipede was implemented on the Atari 2600 and almost every other home computer systems. It features, for instance conversions for Apple II, Commodore 64, ColecoVision and VC 20

End of the 90s, a new version for PCs and the PlayStation was released, in which the original version was released as a bonus.

Trivia

Buckner & Garcia recorded a song called Ode to a Centipede.