GalaxianShooting·Free to play
Centipede
Shoot the centipede segment by segment as it snakes down through the mushrooms.
Independent browser adaptation · Not an official releaseSign in to save your scores and play history, or keep playing as a guest. Recent game activity and scores appear on the homepage with a masked email or IP address.
CentipedeScore0
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Keyboard & touch controls
Mouse / ArrowsMove the blasterSpace / TapFirePPause
How to play Centipede
Roam the bottom zone
You are not pinned to one row. Glide freely inside the strip at the bottom of the screen - Up, down, and sideways - With the mouse, arrow keys, or your finger. Dodging matters as much as shooting.
Shoot the centipede apart
Every segment you hit turns into a mushroom on the spot. Hit the head for extra points; hit the middle and the back half sprouts a new head and splits off on its own route.
Manage the mushroom field
Mushrooms are the maze: each one the centipede touches bends it down a row. Mushrooms take several shots to clear, so tidy the rows near your zone before the traffic arrives.
Track the supporting cast
The spider zigzags through your zone eating mushrooms, the flea drops straight down planting a fresh trail whenever your field gets too clean, and the scorpion crosses the screen poisoning every mushroom it touches.
Answer the poison dive
A centipede that touches a poisoned mushroom stops weaving and plunges straight down at your zone. Shoot it on the way in or clear out of its lane - Hesitating does neither.
This independent browser adaptation uses the original game’s established title. It is not an official publisher release or an original ROM. Its artwork, tuning and controls may differ from other games with similar rules. Guest personal bests stay in this browser. Signed-in players can also save scores and play history to their private dashboard; there is no global leaderboard. Read about controls and local storage.
Choose a related challenge
Splitting the centipede changes the threats moving through the mushrooms. Space Shooter uses separate incoming waves, giving you another pattern to read before choosing a firing position.
What Centipede is like to play
Centipede drops you into a garden that wants you dead. A long centipede winds down through a field of mushrooms, hooking a row lower at every one it touches, and your job is to shoot it apart before it reaches your strip at the bottom of the screen. Here is the twist that makes it brilliant: hit a middle segment and you now have two centipedes, each with its own plans. Meanwhile a spider bounces through your zone, fleas rain down planting fresh mushrooms, and a scorpion poisons the field so the centipede stops weaving and dives straight at you. You can move up, down, and sideways inside the bottom zone - This is a shooter where dodging is half the job. Our version pairs mouse-smooth aiming with touch controls, grows a fresh mushroom field on every restart, and keeps your best score in this browser so the bug-blasting crown is always one good run away.
Centipede at a glance
| Genre | Arcade Shooting Games |
|---|---|
| Challenge | Crowd control under pressure |
| Pace | Splitting segments multiply the chaos |
| Original era | 1981 (Atari) |
| Players | Single player |
| Controls | Mouse / Arrows, Space / Tap |
| Cost | Free, with no account and no download |
Where Centipede came from
Centipede was released by Atari in 1981, designed by Ed Logg together with Dona Bailey - Then the only woman programmer in Atari's coin-op division, and one of the first women to co-create a major arcade hit. Starting from a one-line concept called Bug Shooter on an internal ideas list, the pair built something new: a shooter where the battlefield itself, that ever-changing mushroom field, was the real opponent, all steered with a silky trackball.
It became one of Atari's best-selling cabinets ever, with more than 50,000 machines shipped - And it broke the arcade's demographics wide open. Its pastel palette and swarming, readable chaos drew a famously large female audience at a time when arcades were overwhelmingly male. Logg's 1982 sequel Millipede doubled down with more bugs and bigger fields, but the original's elegance was never really topped.
That elegance is why it still plays perfectly in a browser today. Our version swaps the trackball for your mouse or fingertip, and keeps the splits, the spider, and the poison dives exactly as nature intended, on a garden that grows back differently every time - Proof that a great mushroom field, like a great melody, does not age.
Ways people play Centipede
- Millipede (1982)
- Ed Logg's official sequel adds DDT bombs you can detonate, plus bees, earwigs, dragonflies, and inchworms swarming a busier, faster field.
- Centipede (1998 remake)
- Hasbro's 3D reimagining wrapped the classic shooting into a full adventure mode with worlds to liberate, alongside a faithful arcade mode.
- Centipede: Recharged (2021)
- A neon modern remake with power-ups like railguns and slow-motion, 44 challenge levels, and co-op play on one screen.
- Home console ports (1982 onward)
- Atari 2600 and 5200 versions traded the trackball for joystick rules - while the 5200's optional Trak-Ball controller restored the arcade feel in the living room.
Centipede questions and answers
Why does the centipede split in two?
Shooting a middle segment turns that segment into a mushroom and gives the rear half a brand-new head. You traded one long target for two shorter, angrier ones - Which is why head shots pay better.
What do the mushrooms actually do?
They steer the enemy. Each mushroom the centipede touches turns it around and drops it one row lower, so the shape of the field decides how fast the bug reaches you. Farming the field is the real game.
What are the spider, flea, and scorpion for?
Each attacks a different habit. The spider punishes standing still, the flea punishes over-clearing the bottom by planting new mushrooms, and the scorpion poisons mushrooms to turn the centipede into a diver.
What is a poisoned mushroom?
Any mushroom a scorpion has touched. When a centipede hits one, it stops zigzagging and plunges straight down toward your zone. The poison stays until that mushroom is shot away.
How does spider scoring work?
By distance: 300 points from far away, 600 from mid-range, and 900 point-blank. The game pays you to flirt with the thing most likely to kill you.
What happens when I lose a life?
The garden resets in your favor: damaged mushrooms are repaired and poisoned ones cleansed, with a small bonus paid for each, before the wave resumes. It is the game's one act of kindness.
Is the mushroom field the same every game?
No. Each restart plants a new mushroom layout and gives the bugs new timings, and your own shooting reshapes the field as you go. Reading the garden matters more than remembering it.
How does Centipede play on a touchscreen?
Drag anywhere to glide the blaster around the bottom zone while it fires - The same smooth control the arcade trackball gave, mapped to your fingertip.
If you like Centipede, try these next
Four games from the same shelf, each with its own pace. The one-line summaries are how their own pages describe them.
| Game | What it is like | Pace | Play |
|---|---|---|---|
| Galaxian | They don't just march - They dive. | Dives come faster every wave | Play |
| Space Invaders | Five rows of aliens, one cannon, zero room for panic. | The fewer aliens left, the faster they march | Play |
| Space Shooter | Hold the line - The swarm comes in waves. | Wave patterns stack and overlap | Play |
| Combat | One arena, ricochet shells, last tank standing. | Duels start slow, end sudden | Play |
Arcade shooting games: make room for the next shot.
Fixed cannons, drifting ships and defensive explosions need different escape and aiming plans.
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