Centipede (video game)

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Template:Infobox Arcade Game |sound = Template:POKEY |resolution = 240x256 pixels |monitor = Template:Raster |input = Trackball; 1 button |ports = }} Centipede is a vertically-oriented Shoot 'em up arcade game produced by Atari in 1980. It is regarded as the first arcade game designed by a woman, Dona Bailey. The player takes the role of a garden gnome, defending against swarms of insects. In order to complete rounds, the player must eliminate the centipede that winds down the playing field.

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Description

The player is represented by a small, insect-like character at the bottom of the screen, which is actually supposed to be a gnome. The player moves the character about the bottom area of the screen with a trackball and fires laser shots at a centipede advancing from the top of the screen down through a field of mushrooms. Shooting any section of the centipede creates a mushroom; shooting one of the middle segments splits the centipede into two pieces at that point, which each continue on their way down the board.

The centipede starts out at the top of the screen, traveling either left or right. When it hits a mushroom, or the edge of the screen, it drops one level and switches direction. Thus, more mushrooms on the screen cause the centipede to descend more rapidly. The player can destroy mushrooms with their shots, but this is usually a slow process since each mushroom takes four hits before it vanishes.

If the centipede reaches the bottom of the screen, it moves back and forth within the player area, and periodic one-segment "head" centipedes are added. This continues until the player has eliminated both the original centipede and all heads. When all the centipede's segments are destroyed, a new centipede forms at the top of the screen. Every time a centipede is eliminated, however, the next one is one segment shorter, and is accompanied by one additional, fast-moving, one-segment "head" centipede. A player loses a life when hit by a centipede or another enemy, such as a spider, or a flea which leaves mushrooms behind when less than five are in the player area. There are also scorpions which poison mushrooms they touch, but they never appear in the player's movement region. A centipede touching a poisoned mushroom is sent hurtling straight toward the player's area.

Several strategies were subsequently developed to circumvent the normal play of the game, leading to scores in excess of one million points and games lasting several hours.

One popular strategy, "The Blob", involved purposely filling the rows immediately above the shooter with a field of mushrooms, thereby neutralizing the disruptive effect of the fleas. Clearing the screen of mushrooms above the blob greatly slowed the descent of the centipede, allowing the player to amass points by hunting spiders.

A second successful strategy was "The Trap", whereby the player created a mushroom trap one column from the edge of the screen and strategically deposited mushrooms at the 2nd, 4th and 6th rows, creating an effective centipede trap. One could rack up points indefinitely by defending the trap from spiders.

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Legacy

Centipede was followed by Millipede in 1982, a somewhat less successful, though respectable, game.

In 1992, Atari developed a prototype of an arcade game called Arcade Classics for their 20th anniversary. The game included Missile Command 2 and Super Centipede. Super Centipede screen shot

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Ports

Image:A7800 Centipede.png

This game, like many other Atari arcade games, was ported to the Atari 2600 and many home computer systems of the era (for example, Apple II, Commodore 64, etc.) for home play. Today, it is also often included in the TV Games-style series that have become popular in recent years.

Also, a new version for PC, PlayStation, and Dreamcast was released in the late '90s. The game itself was more or less a completely new game (allowing free movement around a map) but the original version of Centipede was available in this version, albeit with slightly updated 3D graphics.

Centipede has also been made available for Xbox and PlayStation 2 (in both arcade and Atari 2600 versions) as part of Atari Anthology in 2005.

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Clones

Like most other popular arcade games of the era, Centipede was widely imitated by third-party software vendors for home computers. These clones included the following:



Here are a list of clones released in Arcades:

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Song

In 1982, Buckner and Garcia recorded a song called "Ode to a Centipede", using sound effects from the game, and released it on the album Pac-Man Fever.

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External links

it:Centipede sv:Centipede

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