There are a crazy amount of arcade game clones and in this part I’m going to cover clones of the popular arcade game, Centipede. Check out the full list of classic arcade clones for more similar games and knockoffs.
There are definitely more Centipede clones than the ones shown/listed. I just wanted to include all arcade game clones. There are more home console and mobile Centipede clones.
Head to the bottom of the page for the gameplay comparison video of this list of Centipede arcade clones.
K.C.’s Krazy Chase
I recently found out about the Pac Man clone, K.C. Munchkin. The differences in K.C. Munchkin actually made it feel unique. I think the slight differences in art or gameplay in all these clones are what makes them interesting so I’ll try to highlight them.
Doing more research, I noticed that the company that made K.C. Munchkin also made another clone of a popular arcade game.
The company was Philips and they released a sequel to K.C. Munchkin called K.C.’s Krazy Chase!
This game was a mixture between Pac-Man and Centipede.
K.C.’s Krazy Chase! has an enemy that looks just like Atari’s Centipede character.
The player you control chomps its mouth similarly to Pac-Man. You move through a maze and power up by eating mushrooms or the centipede’s segmented body.
The mushrooms and centipede are obviously taken from another popular Atari arcade game, Centipede.
Jackler or Jungler (Arcade Game Clone)
Konami is a very well-known game developer now but they got their start by cloning popular arcade games. They made a game called Jackler or Jungler that was a Centipede clone.
Konami released Jackler to arcades in 1982. Centipede was released a year earlier in 1981.
It seems like they saw the popularity of Pac-Man and Centipede and just wanted to mash the ideas and themes from those games together.
You control a white centipede that moves through a maze. While you do this you have to shoot other centipedes and collect fruit. You can run into enemies to destroy them if you have more segments than them. Defeat all the enemies in a level to move on.
The maze idea and collecting fruit seems to come directly from Pac-Man.
There are no mushrooms or other bugs attacking you like in the original Centipede but let’s take a look at some more Centipede clones that copied much more.
Slither (Arcade Game)
These clones do not wait long after the success of the original to be made. Slither was released by GDI (Game Domain International) in 1982, which is less than a year after Centipede was released. It was later ported to ColecoVision.
GDI only existed for 12 months before filing for bankruptcy. Their only release was Slither and it did not sell near well enough to keep the company afloat.
The Slither arcade cabinet itself has a great retro look that attracts many arcade collectors.
More information on the history of GDI and the Slither arcade cabinet can be found here.
Slither Gameplay
Slither was much more of a copycat than Jackler. The Slither arcade cabinet had a trackball, which is what Centipede had for controls as well.
You move the tracker to shoot snakes that move throughout the screen. The movement and look of the snakes look just like the centipedes from the classic Centipede arcade game.
Slither also has mutant gorillas and pterodactyls that create grass that gets in your way. If they touch the snakes it will cause them to turn invisible except for the glow of their eyes.
Another big gameplay difference is that the ship in Slither could travel the entire screen and also shoot downward.
War of the Bugs (Arcade Game)
War of the Bugs is also called Monstrous Manouvers in a Mushroom Maze. (Maneuvers is misspelled)
War of the Bugs is another clone that combines two popular arcade games to try and get the quarters from fans of both games.
The combo is that of Centipede and Galaga. Galaga has had a long history of clones after its release.
Here you can obviously see the mushroom field and centipede-like alien creatures throughout the screen. But also it draws a lot of influence from Galaga’s color scheme, along with having a spaceship at the bottom of the screen that looks like it came from Galaga.
It plays the same as Centipede but the hitboxes to hit the centipede in War of the Bugs is a bit off so it seems a lot harder to hit it with your shots compared to the original Centipede.
The spiders in War of the Bugs come a lot more often and they just drop straight down instead of bouncing up and down.
There is another bug-looking creature that acts more like the spider from the original.
War of the Bugs was made in 1981 by a company called Food and Fun Corp./Armenia Ltd. I have never heard of this company. But the only other game this company has been credited with is a game called 4 Fun In 1. Speaking of arcade clones, let’s talk about this game called 4 Fun In 1.
4 Fun in 1 (Arcade Game)
The 4 Fun In 1 arcade cabinet was also released in 1981.
From the title, you can guess that this game has four playable games within it.
All four of these games are straight ripoffs or bootlegs of classic arcade games.
There are slight differences between each game and the original that they copy.
Galactic Convoy (Centipede Clone from 4 Fun in 1)
This Centipede clone had the most changes from the original of any of the games in the 4 Fun In 1 arcade game, but that is not saying a lot. The gameplay is still the same as the classic Centipede for the most part.
The “centipede” in Galactic Convoy would create new segments seemingly at random, which did not happen in the original. Only one flea enemy would show up on screen in the original Centipede but multiple “fleas” could be on screen in this clone.
The theme of the clone is more sci-fi than the original as you are in outer space instead of in the woods. The centipede is replaced with a ship with a pilot in it that has a long tail. There are no mushrooms and instead they are replaced with shiny-looking objects floating in space.
Galactic Convoy has a spaceship that you control at the bottom of the screen that is bigger than the original blaster in Centipede. This ship is the exact same sprite and uses the same sound effect as Galaxian Pt5, which is another one of the four cloned games in this bundle.
Centipede Clones and Bootlegs Gameplay Comparison
These games did not try too hard to be different from the popular arcade games they stole from. It is hard to believe that so many classic arcade games were blatantly ripped off like this.
More Arcade Clones: Full List of Crazy Similar Pac-Man Clones