Serpentine (video game)
| Serpentine | |
|---|---|
 Commodore 64 box art of Serpentine | |
| Developer(s) | Brøderbund |
| Publisher(s) | Brøderbund |
| Designer(s) | David Snider |
| Platform(s) | x86 (MS-DOS) Apple II series Atari 400/800 Vic 20 Commodore 64 |
| Release date(s) | 1982 |
| Genre(s) | Action |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Distribution | 5¼-inch disk floppy disk cartridge (Vic 20) |
Serpentine is a 1982 action computer game developed by David Snider and published by Brøderbund.
Description
The player controls (rides, by game description [1]) a multi-segmented blue 'good' serpent in a maze with the objective of eating all computer-controlled 'evil' (red or orange or green) serpents. Eating the tail segments of serpents makes them shorter, and a red or orange serpent turns green when shorter than the player. Hitting a green serpent headfirst eliminates it, and causes the player's serpent to grow an additional segment. Hitting a red or orange serpent headfirst causes the players serpent to die. A frog appears at random intervals and gives any serpent eating it an additional segment. As the game progresses, opposing serpents are faster and longer, increasing the difficulty, and each advancing level the existing players serpent gets slower. Once the players serpent dies, the replacement is as fast again. The game had a total of 20 levels.
One unique aspect of the game is how extra lives are gained. The playing serpent will lay an egg (losing a segment in the process) and, if given enough time, the egg hatches and hurries to the protected area. Enemy serpents will also lay eggs; if one hatches, a new two-segment opponent appears. It is possible to lose the last segment to an egg, resulting in the death of that serpent, but this only happens to the players serpent, not the enemy. If a frog happens to appear while an egg is on the map, it will head towards the egg and eat it as well, even during the end of the level when you cannot control your own serpent to try to eat the frog first. This makes the position where the last serpent is killed important if the player wants to ensure the egg survives.
Serpentine ranked #13 for most popular game of 1982 according to Softalk magazine.[2][3]
Ports
This game was originally written for the Apple II [4] and ported to the Vic 20, Commodore 64 and Atari 400/800. Most versions included 20 different mazes, but the Atari version only had 5.
References
- ↑ Chris Vogeli (Fall 1983), "Five Great Games For The Apple Computer", Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games: 100
- ↑ (unspecified) (Apr 1983), "It's Choplifter in '82", Softalk: 76–82
- ↑ Broderbund Software, Inc (August 1983). "Games, Games, Games". Compute! Gazette. p. 102. Retrieved 4 December 2013.
- ↑ Alan Hewston (Feb 2007), "The Many Faces of Serpentine", Retrogaming Times: 1