Atari Flashback: The Essential Companion Guide 1983-87

Millipede

Rid your garden of those bothersome bugs! An army of menacing millipedes—cousins to the famed Centipede—have invaded your garden patch, and you must shoot arrows at them to rid your plot of these pesky pests. But wait! The millipedes aren’t the only insidious insects you have to destroy. Jumping spiders, buzzing bees, bouncing beetles, mosquitoes, dragonflies, inchworms, and earwigs all have unique and deadly powers of their own!

About the Game

Considering it’s in the top 10 best-selling arcade games of all time, creating a sequel to Centipede seemed inevitable. While some sequels chose to completely redefine their predecessor’s gameplay, others played it safe by making a handful of key tweaks and additions to the original’s beloved formula. Millipede falls into this latter category, holding true for both the arcade original and the Atari 2600 port.

Unlike many Atari 2600 games, Millipede had a fairly large team assigned to it. Dave Staugas programmed the game, Jerome Domurat created the graphics, and Robert Vieira and Andrew Fuchs worked on the sound.

Object of the Game

Wipe out the multi-segmented millipede (and anything else that gets in your way) as it winds its way through the mushroom forest toward the bottom of the screen. When all millipede segments have been destroyed, you move on to the next, more difficult level.

How to Play

Move your bug blaster with the player-one (left) joystick and shoot with the red controller button. Your movement zone is limited to the gray area at the bottom of the screen.

The original **Millipede** arcade game as emulated on the PlayStation 4 version of **Atari Flashback Classics Volume 1** (2016).

Scoring

You begin the game with three lives. For every 15,000 points you earn, you’re awarded another life.

Object	Point Value(s)	Description
Mushroom	1	Mushrooms are all right, but they’re slowly choking you out of your garden.
Millipede head	100	The millipedes attack from the top of your garden. They march back and forth across your patch until they get to the bottom. When a millipede bumps into a mushroom, it reverses direction. If any part of the millipede touches you, you’re finished!
Millipede segment	10
Spider	300/600/ 900/1,200	Jumping spiders enter from either side of the screen. How many points you get for ridding the garden of a spider depends on how close it is when you shoot it.
Beetle	300	Beetles crawl in when you least expect them. They also have a particular pattern they follow, so pay attention!
Mosquito	400	Swat mosquitoes for big points. But you’d better be quick with your arrows—mosquitoes also swarm!
Bee	200	Bees buzz randomly through the magic patch. They have a distinct sound, so they’re easy to recognize. But watch out when they swarm at you, or you’re sure to get stung!
Inchworm	100	The inchworm can’t move too quickly, but it’s tricky just the same. When you shoot this little critter, the movement of all the insects on the screen is slowed down for about four seconds.
DDT Bomb	800	Thank goodness for pesticides! Pierce one of the DDT Bombs in your garden to earn an automatic 800 points. Explode the DDT at the right time, and the vapor wipes out any bug it touches! For each bug destroyed by DDT, you earn triple the points you’d normally get for it.
Dragonfly	500	Be careful! These flying beasts like to swarm, too.
Earwig	1000	Earwigs are hard to hit, but if you’re on target, they’re worth a lot. Earwigs also poison mushrooms on contact, changing their color if you don’t get them before they cross the width of the screen. Get the earwigs before they cause more damage.

Every time you lose a bug blaster, you receive five points for every flower and every three mushrooms left on the screen.

Game Options

After the Millipede title screen appears, press Select or the red controller button to select the number of points you want to begin a game with. In the first game of any playing session, you can start with 0, 15,000, or 30,000 points. Move your controller forward to increase your score, and back to decrease your score. After the first game, you can start at up to 15,000 points below your previous high score, in 15,000-point increments up to 300,000. If you just played a game and scored 107,000 points, for example, you can start your next game at 90,000.

Make sure you keep your eye on the millipede while you’re getting rid of the other pests. The millipede can sneak up on you if you’re not careful, so keep it under control.
If a millipede touches a poisonous mushroom—poisonous mushrooms are different colors from most—watch out! The millipede will charge directly at you!
When the insects swarm, you’re in for big trouble if you’re not alert. Only a spider can enter the garden while the mosquitoes, bees, or dragonflies are swarming. You get 100 extra points (above the normal point value) for the second swarming bug you destroy, 200 for the third, and so forth—up to 1,000 extra points per bug. But beware! Swarming bugs fly fast and furious!
Each insect has its own unique sound, so keep your ears open and you can anticipate what’s coming next.