How to play Lock ‘n’ Chase online
- Move the thief: arrow keys (up, down, left, right)
- Slam a door / start the next thief: Space bar
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Choose one or two players: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Game speed: F4 toggles the Player 1 difficulty switch (F9 for Player 2)
- Player 2 joystick: T/F/G/H to move, A to slam doors
Gameplay
You guide a thief through a maze-shaped bank vault, picking up gold bars as four police officers give chase. If one touches your thief, he is caught; lose all five thieves and the game is over. Once every gold bar is gone, a red door opens at the top and you can escape to a fresh vault.
Your main weapon is the door. Pressing the button slams a door behind the thief, but only at the black lines drawn across the corridors, and only two doors can be shut at the same time. Each door reopens after a few seconds, and your thief cannot pass through a closed door either. Openings on the left and right sides of the vault act as tunnels: run out one side and you come back in on the other. Now and then a treasure appears for a short time in the middle of the screen.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Gold bar | 20 |
| Upper treasure | 500, then 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000 |
| Lower treasure | 250, doubling each time |
| Trapping a police officer between two doors | 2,000 (once per vault) |
With the difficulty switch on A the game is fast from the start. On B it begins slowly and speeds up. In a two-player game the left joystick controls the red thieves and the right joystick the green ones.
Tips
- Save your doors. You only get two at a time, so shut one when an officer is right behind you, not “just in case”.
- Go for the trap bonus. The long vertical corridors on the lower left and right are the best place to catch an officer between two doors for 2,000 points.
- Don’t lean on the side tunnels. The police can use them too, and you may pop out right in front of one.
- Don’t lock yourself in. A closed door blocks you as well, so check your escape route before you slam it.
History
Data East released Lock ‘n’ Chase in arcades in 1981, and Taito distributed it in North America. In the arcade the four officers even have names: Stiffy, Scaredy, Smarty and Silly. Mattel licensed it for its Intellivision console in 1982, the first of several Data East arcade games it converted, and brought it to the Atari 2600 through M Network, its label for Atari-compatible cartridges. AtariAge credits Bruce Pedersen as the 2600 programmer. This version copies the look of the Intellivision game, but some maze detail is lost, which makes it harder to see where the doors will fall. Lock ‘n’ Chase later appeared on the Apple II and, in 1990, the Game Boy.
