Arcade Files · 👾 The golden age (1978–83)

G33Z3R Arcade Files · 19811985

Who designed Centipede?

Centipede

Released
1981
Made by
Atari; designed by Dona Bailey and Ed Logg
How it played
A trackball, a mushroom field, a centipede that splits when you shoot it, and a spider that ruins everything
Why it mattered
One of the few golden-age games designed by a woman, and one of the first with a large female audience

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The file

The trackball made it. You rolled a heavy ball to move your shooter along the bottom of the screen, and the pastel mushrooms and the split-second twitch of the spider made Centipede the prettiest and meanest cabinet in the row.

Dona Bailey was one of Atari's only women programmers, and the game's palette and pace drew a crowd the shooting games didn't. The Millipede sequel never replaced it.

Sources: Wikipedia — Centipede (video game)

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