Dodge ‘Em (Sears title: Dodger Cars) is a driving-themed maze game for the Atari VCS (later Atari 2600), where the player controls a car driving counter-clockwise, avoiding computer-controlled cars trying to cause a head-on collision. The goal is to collect all the dots from the maze. The maze’s roadways have four gaps at the top, bottom, left, and right, allowing the player to change lanes to pick up dots or avoid computer-controlled cars.
The player’s car can travel at normal speed (the same as computer-controlled cars) or fast speed (double the normal speed) by pressing the controller button. The computer-controlled cars have only one speed. Players change lanes by pushing the controller in the appropriate direction when their car is near one of the gaps in the roadway.
Difficulty switches adjust the speed and starting position of the computer-controlled car. Screens 1 and 2 have a single opposing car, while screens 3 through 5 feature two. Screen 6 takes the player back to screen 1, losing one life. The point counter resets at 1,000, although it displays as ” 00″ (with the hundreds digit blank) due to an error. A kill screen occurs at ” 80″ (1080 points) even if a player plays perfectly, making it impossible to progress further in the game.