Galaga - Namco

Developer:  Namco

Year:  1981

Genre:  Space

Production:  42,500

Game Play 

Moving along the bottom of the screen,  you shoot at the enemies either in formation or as they fly about. Most  enemies are destroyed by one hit, but the Galagas take two hits they  turn blue when hit once. You must avoid being hit by enemies and their  fire. You must also be aware of the Galaga's tractor beam, which can  capture your ship a captured ship turns red. To free the captured ship,  you must destroy the captor Galaga while it is attacking you, otherwise  the captured ship will be destroyed. When you free a captured ship, it  will dock alongside your current ship, thus creating a dual ship.

Ships are lost when you are hit by enemies. Dual ships are destroyed individually.

Cheats & Tricks

TRICK: If a Galaga's tractor beam starts  pulling you in, you will spin about, but you will still be able to  shoot at enemies. If you happen to end up shooting upward and destroy  the Galaga before you are captured, you will just drop back into play.

TRICK: If you happen to lose a ship to a Galaga and then shoot the  Galaga while it is still in formation, the captive ship will remain  under enemy control. However, it will only make one attack at you before  disappearing. If you allow it to escape, it will return in the next  stage unless it's a Challenge Stage with another Galaga, giving you  another shot at freeing the ship.

CHEAT: There is a well-known cheat that causes enemy units to stop firing. It works on most, but not all, machines.

• On the first stage, kill everything but the two bees in the  bottom left corner. Then just wait, dodging the bees' shots, until the  bee no longer drops any shots towards you.
• After the bees stop firing, let it pass for five more trips or so and then kill them.
• For  the rest of the game, the enemies will not drop shots. It will take  approximately 15 minutes for the bees to quit shooting at you, so this  trick requires a lot of patience.

Note: Some people have reported that this trick also works with two  bees from the RIGHT side of the screen. Note that in a two-player game,  only one person has to do the cheat for both players to benefit.

TRICK: The "Player 1" score counter in Galaga is six digits, but the  "Player 2" counter is seven digits. Therefore, most good players start a  two-player game and play exclusively on the Player 2 side so their  score will not "roll over" at 999990. Challenging stages are easier if  the high score numbers are used to refine your aim.

TRICKS: These tips assume a six-digit high score:

• On the first two challenging stages, aim your ships so that your  left set of bullets falls between the second and third numbers in the  high score list. On subsequent challenging stages, aim one set of  bullets between the first and second numbers in the high score list if  the units come from the left or between the last and next-to-last  numbers if the units come from the right. This will allow you to hit  descending enemies at the highest possible point value.
• If you  have more than seven extra men, the marker for the screen will only show  7 1/2 men remaining. Additional extra men will still be credited, even  though they will not show on the screen.
• Galaga "rolls over"  after stage 255. After finishing the 255th level, the screen says "Stage  0" and the machine locks up. I have heard unconfirmed reports in the  past that the "Stage 0" problem can be circumvented if the last two  numbers in your score at the end of level 255 are ?? 80 is what I  remember, but it may be something else.
• After the 1000000 mark, new ships are no longer awarded.

BUG: A bug exists in Galaga during the Galaga demo, the Galaga character comes down and tries to  tractor-beam up the player's ship. As soon as that tractor-beam starts,  the player can take control of the ship in the demo.