Galaga Cocktail Table

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, Bugs, and Easter Eggs

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.

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.