How to play Popeye online
- Move Popeye: arrow keys (up and down to use stairs)
- Punch / grab the spinach: Space bar (one punch per press)
- Start a new game: Space bar or F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
Gameplay
This is a one-player game. You start with four Popeyes and earn a bonus one at 20,000 points. In each round you must catch 20 of Olive’s tokens: hearts in round 1, love notes in round 2 and kisses (Xs) in round 3. In the first two rounds each catch adds a brick to Popeye’s house at the top of the screen. After round 3 the game returns to round 1 at a higher level, where the tokens fall faster, bottles fly more often and Brutus chases more closely.
You lose a Popeye if Brutus catches you, if one of the Sea Hag’s bottles hits you, or if a token falls into the water and is not picked up in time. The Sea Hag stays hidden at the sides and only throws when she is on your level; you can punch her bottles. At random moments a can of spinach flashes on the screen (once per round at most). Grab it and Popeye turns red while his theme tune plays: now you can knock Brutus overboard, and every token you catch is worth double.
Each screen has its own tricks. Round 1 has “thru” ledges at the top that let you wrap from one side to the other, and a ladder that only goes down. Round 2 adds trampolines that bounce you up to the higher platforms. Round 3 is set around a ship’s mast, with a sliding floor that carries you across and chutes that drop you straight to the bottom.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Token caught on platform 1 (top) | 500 |
| Token caught on platform 2 | 300 |
| Token caught on platform 3 | 100 |
| Token caught on platform 4 (bottom) | 50 |
| Token saved from the water | 50 |
| Punching a bottle | 100 |
| Knocking Brutus overboard | 3,000 |
Tips
- Catch high. A token is worth ten times more on the top platform than on the bottom one, so meet tokens as early in their fall as you safely can.
- Know where the spinach appears. Round 1: the left stairs. Round 2: a trampoline (grab it from the bottom platform). Round 3: the far left or right of the bottom floor. Then go straight for Brutus.
- Watch Brutus’s reach. He can punch up or down between platforms, so being one level away is not always safe.
The story behind Popeye
The arcade Popeye was designed at Nintendo by Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto and based on E.C. Segar’s comic strip characters. Parker Brothers published the home versions for several systems in 1983. AtariMania credits the 2600 cartridge to programmer Joe Gaucher, whose name is hidden in the ROM together with “Parker Bros.”
The 2600’s limited hardware meant cuts. Characters became single-colour sprites, the arcade’s first-screen bucket and punching bag are gone, and the vulture from the third screen was dropped. The biggest change is on screen two: the arcade’s see-saw, with Wimpy sitting on one end, was replaced by a trampoline on each side of the screen. The round targets also changed, from 24 hearts, 16 notes and the letters of “HELP” in the arcade to 20 tokens per round at home.
