How to play River Patrol online
- Steer the boat: arrow keys
- Speed up (engine): Space bar
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
You are the captain of a patrol boat heading upriver towards a dam. Two bars keep you informed. The green goal gauge shows how far you still have to go, and the violet water gauge shows how much more water your boat can take on before it goes under. Your boat leaks all the time, so every river is a race against the water gauge.
Hitting driftwood, rocks, the shore, another boat or TNT sinks you straight away. Alligators and whirlpools are less sudden but still dangerous: they make water pour in faster. To escape a whirlpool, point the boat upstream and press the engine button. You have four boats, and the game ends when all of them have sunk.
There are nine rivers. After the ninth, the game keeps cycling through rivers seven to nine until you run out of boats. You score points for distance travelled, a bonus at the dam based on how much room is left on your water gauge, and points for every person you save. The rescue bonus starts at 50 and grows by 50 with each person in a row (100, 150, 200 and so on), but drops back to 50 if you let someone drown.
Tips
- Keep your rescue streak going. Each rescue in a row is worth 50 points more than the last, so one missed swimmer costs you a lot.
- Don’t dawdle. The boat leaks constantly, and the water left in the gauge at the dam is turned into bonus points.
History
The arcade River Patrol came out in Japan in July 1981 and was among the higher-earning arcade games there that year. Tigervision, a small publisher best known on the 2600 for games such as Jawbreaker and King Kong, brought it to the console in 1984, just as the North American video game market was collapsing. Very few cartridges reached shops, which is why it is so sought after by collectors today.
