Centipede followed by Millipede are without a doubt my all time favorite arcade games. Many hours and quarters were lost playing these games at my local arcades. I think I’ve coded either a demo or a full game based on these games on every platform I’ve ever programmed on. lol..

I coded my first attempt at a Centipede type game on the Atari 8 bit called….Munsiepede. lol.. The game was coded in a basic language that also had a compiler so your games ended up running at a decent speed. This version was using character graphics for everything so the movement wasn’t that smooth.

I started learning 6502 assembly and I decided to write another centipede demo game called….yep… Munsiepede2. I was still using character graphics for the main centipede but everything else was player missile graphics. The end result was a lot more fluid and it had plenty of pede action. I used to get emails from peeps recognizing the EV tribute before each game started. lol..

On the Atari ST I coded a game called Bugs which was getting pretty close to a decent Centipede/Millipede game. It ended up being released at 20fps which was meh..ok, but it was a bit disappointing because I had the game running at 30fps most of the time during development but when things were too busy on screen the game would slow down so I just locked the game at 20fps.

During the development of MGE (coded in BlitzMax), I once again started messing around with a Centipede/Millipede game. With the increased power of PCs I really didn’t have to worry too much about slow down. I put together some rudimentary graphics and started coding a bunch of routines. The hardest part was always coding the main centipedes. After that it was just basic set it forget it sprite launching and generic collision checking. I was throwing around a lot of ideas while I was prototyping “UltraPede” for the PC. lol.. For a while there I had thoughts about going all out and trying to make this a commercial quality game but I ultimately decided to change direction and work on Christmas Clix instead.

Download UltraPede Demo For PC

A couple of years ago with my MGE engine now fully updated, I finally wanted to code a decent Centipede/Millipede game. The UltraPede prototype had some decent ideas, but I wanted to this game to be less busy, maybe more of a tribute to the original arcade games while still throwing in a few new ideas. This version would go on to become part of my Swan Song project. While there’s a few things I could improve on, I am extremely proud of this version, I think it came out great! It’s also very cool that peeps who have played it say it’s one of the better Millipede games they have ever played. Maybe now my Pede coding days can finally come to rest. lol.. Check out the sneak peak video below. 😉