How to play Pigs in Space online
- Choose a game: left and right arrow keys to move between the three Muppet faces, Space to start when a face flashes
- Move: arrow keys
- Fire (or karate chop in Pastaroids): Space bar
- One or two players: F11 (the console’s Select switch), on the title screen only
- Back to the game choice screen: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Bonus rounds: F4 (difficulty switch) – B gives an extra round every 10,000 points, A gives none
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
You begin with five rounds, which work like lives. After each round you complete, you can replay the same game at a harder level or switch to another.
Chickenvaders (Link Hogthrob) is a take on Space Invaders. Link runs along the bottom throwing sausages at rows of space chickens. The round ends if an egg hits him, turning him into a chicken, or if the flock gets down to the ground. Chickens in higher rows are worth more, from 10 up to 100 points, and Gonzo’s saucer at the top is worth 300. Clearing every chicken earns 1,000.
Pastaroids (Miss Piggy) is a crossing game. Miss Piggy must get back to the ship through a storm of flying spaghetti and meatballs. Being hit knocks her back to the start, and if the Swinetrek leaves the screen before she reaches it, you lose a round. Karate-chopping a meatball gives 100 points, and boarding the ship gives 1,000.
Escape from the Planet of the Gonzoids (Dr. Strangepork) puts you in control of the Swinetrek inside an old pizza mine. Robots on the ledges throw pizzas, and touching a pizza or the tunnel walls disables the ship. Your weapon, the Boomeray, flies upward and then curves back down in the direction you are moving, like a boomerang. You score a point for every mile, 100 per robot and 1,000 for escaping the mine.
Tips
- Take high rows early in Chickenvaders. Upper rows lose value once a lower row has been wiped out, so hit them while they are worth the most, but don’t let the bottom rows get too close to the ground.
- Be patient in Pastaroids. A hit only sends Miss Piggy back to the start, so waiting for a gap is safer than rushing while the ship is still on screen.
- Watch the Boomeray’s return. A badly aimed shot can come back and hit your own ship. Also, the button press that starts this game fires a shot, so hold still at first.
History
Michael Sierchio designed the game in collaboration with Jim Henson, and three programmers split the work: according to AtariProtos, Rob Zdybel did Chickenvaders, Bill Aspromonte did Pastaroids and John Russell did the Gonzoids game. Atari released it in November 1983, and the manual calls it a “tripigathlon”.
A 1983 review in Videogaming and Computer Gaming Illustrated liked its variety, and the 1984 Software Encyclopedia from Electronic Games rated it 7 out of 10. Later reviewers were cooler, singling out the slow, repetitive Gonzoids game as the weakest part.
