How to play Pitfall II online
- Run left and right: left and right arrow keys
- Jump: Space bar. Hold left or right while pressing it for a running jump
- Climb a ladder: up arrow to go up; press the down arrow just before you reach the hole to go down
- Steer a balloon: left and right arrows; up speeds it up, down slows it down
- Start a new game: F12 (Reset), then move the joystick. Select and the difficulty switches are not used
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
Harry’s niece Rhonda and their nervous pet cat Quickclaw have gone missing in the caverns, and somewhere down there lies the Raj diamond, stolen a century earlier. Harry’s diary in the manual describes the maze as about eight rooms wide and more than three times as deep.
The caves are full of frogs, bats, condors, electric eels and scorpions. There are no lives: touch one and Harry is carried back to the last red cross he touched, and your score drains away during the trip. Falling by accident also costs 100 points. There is no time limit, and the game ends as soon as Rhonda, Quickclaw and the diamond have all been found.
| Item | Points |
|---|---|
| Starting advance | 4,000 |
| Each gold bar (28 in all) | 5,000 |
| Rhonda | 10,000 |
| Quickclaw | 10,000 |
| Cave rat | 15,000 |
| Raj diamond | 20,000 |
A perfect score of 199,000 means finding everything, all 28 gold bars and the optional rat included, without ever being hit.
Tips
- Touch every red cross. The further back your last checkpoint, the more points a mistake costs.
- Let a bat pop your balloon. You cannot let go of a balloon yourself. Float over the ledge you want, and wait for a bat to burst it so you drop gently.
- Time the flying enemies. Run underneath condors and bats when they are at the top of their flight path.
- Drift while falling. If you drop down a long shaft by mistake, hold left or right and Harry slowly drifts that way.
- Jump the big gaps diagonally. To cross a shaft, stand at the edge, press the button and hold the direction you want to go.
- Approach the rat from behind. The manual says that is the only way to catch it.
The story behind Pitfall II
By 1984 the 2600 was an old machine, so Crane, an electronics engineer by training, designed a custom chip that went inside the cartridge. His Display Processor Chip took over much of the graphics work and made four-voice music possible, and Pitfall II became the first 2600 game with a complete soundtrack. The music reacts to what you do: finding treasure brings back the main theme, a slower, sadder version plays after you get sent back to a checkpoint, and the waltz “Sobre las Olas” plays during balloon rides.
Rhonda and Quickclaw came from the Saturday Supercade cartoon, which included Pitfall Harry segments. Released after the 1983 video game crash, it still sold well, and Computer Entertainer magazine named it its 2600 Program of the Year. Its checkpoints are often cited as one of the earliest examples, and Retro Gamer later ranked it the best 2600 game. Many ports followed; the Atari 8-bit computer version even added a second set of caverns beyond the original ending.
