Hobbies And Interests
Instructions
Find your venue. Although many of the old arcades that flourished in the 1980s have closed or sold off their Centipede machines, the game can still be found in various corners of your city or town, and possibly even at the home of a collector. Newer gaming consoles also offer Centipede, although the style of play can be different.
Get your "roller swing" down. For passionate Centipede gamers, the "roll" is a distinctive part of the game; classically, the game was played, not with a directional joystick, but with a round ball that rested in the console; swinging the sphere in a certain direction would make your on-screen character move. Techniques vary wildly, from the tightly controlled feint to the wild roll of the ball, causing the game icon to jump around erratically.
Cut through "mushrooms" for a clear shooting path. The main point of Centipede is to eliminate quickly descending rows of the "centipede's" segments. "Mushrooms" are stationary obstacles scattered across the screen that must be destroyed to slow the descent of the segment-lines, as they will "bounce" down after contact with a mushroom. Clearing mushrooms is one basic strategy of the game, though not always first priority.
Watch out for "scorpions", etc. In later levels, the game includes other more aggressive "insects" that appear down in the player's "green zone", making it imperative to keep that ball rolling to keep your character out of harm's way.
Cultivate fancy "footwork", dancing between horizontals. As the game gets progressively difficult, the player will have to move more and more to stay out of the way of "enemies." More strategic work on clearing mushrooms will help, but the focus becomes staying one pixel away from attackers in pursuit of that gamer's holy grail, the High Score.