CENTIPEDE
• Some graphics from Galaxian are in the code, specifically the player’s ship and one of the Galaxians! According to GCC programmer Mark S. Ackerman, game data tables were usually partially overwritten with data tables from other games, in an effort to save bytes. The ship is between 0cb8 – 0cc5 (picture #1); the Galaxian is between 0eed – 0ef6 (picture #2).
• After 100k, fleas sometimes drop down a row of mushrooms near the bottom (3 mushrooms in a row, with a space between). These “ladders” are often dangerous, as they can help send a centipede to the bottom of the screen very quickly. But they can also be used to trap the Centipede in one of the bottom corners, allowing you to pick off spiders, scorpions, and fleas as long as you want (video #1). {Scott Stilphen}
• Some of the same strategies used for the arcade game can be applied here (tunnel, trap, etc).
• BUG: If you lose a life and then earn one with the points from the mushrooms being tallied, the song that plays when you earn a free life will be cut short (video #2).
• BUG: At around 850k, garbled graphics will start randomly appearing, usually somewhere along the left side of the screen. It appears to be the graphics for the spider, the point values for the spider, the centipede, and the player’s “death” explosion all being cycled through for a few seconds. Shooting this area has no effect. If it appears when a spider is onscreen, the spider will stop, and the sound effect for it will play constantly until it disappears. This glitch becomes linked to the appearance of the scorpion the closer you get to rolling the score, and the scorpion itself will disappear altogether, although its sound f/x will keep playing as though it’s there. None of the mushrooms will be poisoned during this, although a few will blink. Once the score rolls over, the glitches stop appearing until you get close to 850k again (video #3).
• BUG: In the course of a 1 million point game, the game will lose the framerate once or twice.
• BUG: Incompatible with some 7800 systems. PAL carts also have a problem with the title screen (on PAL 7800 systems).
• FRYING: Get an empty screen to appear, with a scorpion (with sound effects) going across the bottom. If you push DOWN, your “cursor” will appear from the top of the screen. If you push (and hold) UP, the game will eventually crash (picture #3), which changes the background color and causes the scoring digits to be backwards (pictures #4, #5, and #6), as well as the title screen lettering (picture #86). Other anomalies that may appear are screen edge borders (pictures #4 and #7) and distorted title screens (picture #8). {Tony Roy and Scott Stilphen}
