Centipede Cheat Codes & Secrets

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Game Variation Select (Atari 2600)

The Atari 2600 port of Centipede (1982, published by Atari) uses the Game Select switch on the console itself to cycle through numbered game variations rather than a button-sequence code system. This was the standard Atari 2600 method for difficulty and mode selection, and Centipede makes full use of it with a wide range of variations that effectively function as a built-in difficulty ladder and warp system.

Variation	Effect	Platform
1	Standard 1-player game, default speed, 3 lives	Atari 2600
2	1-player, faster centipede movement	Atari 2600
3	1-player, fastest speed (arcade-approximate pace)	Atari 2600
4	1-player, slower pace — good for beginners	Atari 2600
5	2-player alternating, standard speed	Atari 2600
6	2-player alternating, fast speed	Atari 2600
7	2-player alternating, fastest speed	Atari 2600
8	2-player alternating, slow speed	Atari 2600
9–12	Repeat of 1–4 with reduced starting lives (2 lives)	Atari 2600
13–16	Repeat of 1–4 with single starting life	Atari 2600

To select a variation, press the Game Select switch repeatedly until the on-screen number matches your target, then press Game Reset to begin. Because the console lacks a numeric display in the traditional sense, the variation number is shown at the top of the screen as a digit before the round starts.

Variations 9 through 16 are the closest thing the 2600 version has to a hard mode unlock — stripping away extra lives forces players to rely entirely on skill with no safety net, replicating the punishing feel of the original arcade cabinet.

Difficulty Switch Settings

The Atari 2600’s built-in Left Difficulty and Right Difficulty switches provide a second layer of tuning that stacks on top of the game variation number.

Switch Position	Effect	Notes
Left Difficulty — A (up)	Smaller, faster player blaster	Harder to maneuver, closer to arcade feel
Left Difficulty — B (down)	Larger blaster hitbox	More forgiving, recommended for beginners
Right Difficulty — A (up)	Spiders move faster and more aggressively	Significantly increases mid-game difficulty
Right Difficulty — B (down)	Slower, more predictable spider movement	Standard spider behavior

The combination of Difficulty A on both switches with Variation 3 (fastest speed) is the most demanding configuration available on the 2600 hardware. Tournament players in the early 1980s typically played with both switches set to A to maintain parity with the arcade original. If you want to replicate the exact arcade difficulty curve as closely as the hardware allows, set Left Difficulty to A, Right Difficulty to A, and select Variation 3.

Mushroom Field Manipulation (Exploit)

One of the most powerful and widely-used exploits in competitive Centipede play — on both the arcade and Atari 2600 — involves deliberately shaping the mushroom field to your advantage. The centipede’s path is entirely determined by mushroom placement: it turns downward whenever it strikes a mushroom or a side wall, then reverses horizontal direction.

How to exploit it:

1. At the start of a round, before firing aggressively at the centipede head, let segments pass to the lower portion of the screen.
2. Shoot segments selectively to leave mushrooms in specific columns.
3. Build a “funnel” of mushrooms that forces the centipede into a narrow corridor — ideally a single column far from the center — making it predictable and easy to shoot.
4. Clear mushrooms in the player zone (bottom quarter of the screen) entirely to give yourself maximum maneuvering room.

On the 2600, the player zone is the bottom section where your blaster can move. Keeping this area mushroom-free is essential at higher difficulty levels because spiders — which move through the player zone — bounce off mushrooms unpredictably, making their trajectory much harder to track.

The mushroom farming technique was documented in early gaming newsletters and Atari tip sheets as early as 1982, making it one of the first formally described video game exploits in print.

Flea Suppression Strategy (Beneficial Exploit)

Fleas only appear when there are fewer than a certain number of mushrooms in the player’s lower zone. This threshold behavior is an exploitable mechanic:

• Keep 5 or more mushrooms in the lower portion of the screen to prevent fleas from spawning.
• If you clear the field too aggressively, you will trigger repeated flea drops that rapidly fill the zone with new mushrooms and disrupt your carefully managed field.

The optimal strategy is to leave a small cluster of mushrooms near one edge of the lower zone — enough to suppress flea spawning but positioned away from your primary movement corridor. This exploit lets experienced players go entire rounds without seeing a single flea at mid-game difficulty settings.

Spider Point Manipulation (Scoring Exploit)

The spider is the highest-value enemy in Centipede, and its point value scales based on how close to the bottom of the screen it is when shot:

Distance from Bottom	Points Awarded
Far from bottom (top of player zone)	300 points
Mid-range	600 points
Very close to bottom edge	900 points

To maximize spider points, let the spider approach as close as possible before firing. This is a high-risk, high-reward technique — spiders move erratically and can collide with your blaster, ending your life. On the 2600 with Right Difficulty set to A (fast spiders), waiting for 900-point shots requires significant practice and precise lateral movement.

Experienced players refer to this as “spider baiting” — deliberately holding fire and drawing the spider into the lowest row before shooting. World record score attempts on the original arcade version rely heavily on consistent 900-point spider kills, and the same principle applies directly to the 2600 port.

Centipede Head Priority Rule (Tactical Exploit)

When multiple centipede segments are on screen, each individual segment that loses the segment ahead of it immediately becomes a new head, spawning its own independent centipede. This is not a bug — it is intended design — but players who understand it can exploit it strategically:

• Shooting middle segments splits the centipede into two, accelerating the round but increasing the number of heads you must track.
• Shooting the tail reduces the centipede by one segment without splitting — the slowest but most controlled way to deplete a long centipede.
• Shooting the head directly kills the lead segment and promotes the next segment to head, which then drops down a row immediately.

For beginners, shooting tails is the safest approach. For score maximization, splitting centipedes strategically while maintaining field control is the advanced technique. The key insight — which many players miss — is that every split creates a mushroom at the point of the kill, so aggressive splitting rapidly fills the field and can work against you.

Atari 5200 and Atari 8-Bit Computer Versions

The Atari 5200 (1982) and Atari 8-bit home computer versions of Centipede are closer to the arcade original than the 2600 port. These versions use a trackball controller (5200) or joystick (8-bit computers) and offer additional game variations.

Feature	Atari 2600	Atari 5200	Atari 8-bit
Game variations	Up to 16	Up to 16	Up to 16
Trackball support	No	Yes (native)	With peripheral
Difficulty switches	Hardware switches	On-screen menu	On-screen menu
Color accuracy	Limited	Near-arcade	Near-arcade

On the 5200 with the official trackball controller, all of the mushroom manipulation and spider baiting exploits described above apply. The trackball allows faster and more precise lateral movement than the 2600 joystick, making the 900-point spider shot consistently achievable at high skill levels.

NES Version — Game Genie Codes

The NES version of Centipede (released by Atari Games, 1987) supports Game Genie codes for players using that accessory:

Game Genie Code	Effect	Platform
SXKGNYVK	Infinite lives	NES
AAKGNYZA	Start with 1 life instead of 3	NES
IAKGNYZA	Start with 6 lives	NES
AAKGNYZL	Start with 9 lives	NES
SZUGYOVK	Invincibility against most enemies	NES

The SXKGNYVK infinite lives code was among the first widely circulated Game Genie codes for the NES library, appearing in early 1990s game magazines as Centipede was included with several NES bundle packages. It works by patching the life-decrement routine in memory, meaning the counter reads but never writes a lower value.

Developer Easter Egg — Programmer Initials (Atari 2600)

The Atari 2600 version of Centipede was programmed by Jef Frederiksen. In keeping with the era’s tradition of hiding programmer signatures inside games (a practice Atari tried to suppress until the famous Adventure Easter egg by Warren Robinett became public knowledge), Frederiksen embedded his initials in the ROM. The initials JF can be read from the game’s binary data at a specific memory offset, though unlike Adventure’s hidden room, there is no in-game sequence to display them on screen — they exist purely as a ROM artifact discoverable through hex editing.

This type of embedded signature was common across the 2600 library and reflects the broader culture of programmers asserting authorship in an era when Atari’s corporate policy denied programmer credits entirely.

High Score Reset and Roll-Over

On the Atari 2600, the score counter rolls over at 999,999 points back to zero. Reaching a score rollover was a documented achievement in the early 1980s competitive gaming scene and required extended play sessions of several hours. Because the 2600 version does not save high scores (scores reset on power-off or Game Reset), players who achieved rollovers had to document them with photographs.

The arcade version’s counter also rolls, though at a different threshold. Competitive players who targeted rollovers typically used the mushroom funnel exploit combined with consistent spider baiting to maintain maximum scoring rate per round without taking damage.