Atari Centipede - Play Mode

Centipede
TM
As
it travels
across the
screen, it
“poisons” the
mushrooms that
it moves
over and
changes their
colors. These
mushrooms
cause any
centipedes
that would
collide
with them to
head straight
towards
the bottom of
the screen,
rather than con-
tinue
snaking around.
Players can
stop a poisoned
centipede by shooting
its head.
In
addition, these
poisoned
mushrooms as well
as any
partially shot
mushrooms
add
5
points
to
the
player’s score at
the end
of each life
when
the
screen
is resetting.
If the
players
are very skilled
and earn
at
least
60,000
points, two
things
happen to increase
player
challenge:
the fleas
descend at a
faster speed and
the
spiders
restrict their
movement to
a
smaller area
at the
bottom of
the screen.
An
important new
feature of this game
is the
oper-
ator
option
for easy/hard
game
difficulty. In
the easy
game, the
spider moves
slowly
up
to a
5,000-point
score, and
then
bounces
at
a
higher speed. It also
changes
direction less
often throughout the
game
than at the
hard setting.
In
the hard
setting,
the spider
moves slowly only
for the
first
1,000
points, and
then speeds
up.
It also
changes
direction more
often throughout the
game.
In
either setting,
the spider
always
moves at a
45-degree
angle or
straight
up
and
down.
Another
operator option is
the number
of
lives
per
game,
ranging from
2
to
5
(see
Figure
7 for switch
settings).
This
number
is
displayed
as small
shoot-
ers at
the top
of the
screen.
The
number is
de-
creased by one each
time
a
player is
destroyed. The
number
is increased
by
one each time the player
scores
multiples of
10, 12, 15
or 20 thousand points,
depending on
the operator selection.
4.
High Score
initial
Mode
If
a player’s score exceeds
the minimum
on the
high score
initial
list, he or she may put
up
to three
initials on
this list at the
end
of
the game. At
the be-
ginning of this mode, the characters A appear
on the screen.
The
logic
will
also display the mes-
sages GREAT SCORE and ENTER YOUR INITIALS.
Players enter initials one character
at a time,
choosing from the
characters A
thru Z and a blank
space.
Pressing the fire button selects the letter,
and rolling the Trak Ball control changes the letters
on the
screen.
After the fire button is pressed the third time, the
initials and score are transferred
to
the table. This
table contains eight scores and appears
during
the
attract and ready-to-play mode.
All but the
highest
three scores are erased when-
ever
you enter the
self-test,
or
press the RESET
but-
ton
on
the game
PCB,
or
turn off
the power. This re-
setting replaces
the lowest five scores with
ficti-
tious
scores
and
initials.
If you erase the special
“permanent” memory,
the
high score table
is
replaced
with eight
fictitious
scores and initials.
In other words,
the table
will al-
ways be
displayed on
the
screen, possibly
consisting
of
one
or more
realistic scores
and players’ initials.
16