How to play Pengo online
- Move Pengo: arrow keys
- Kick a block, crush a block or shake a wall: Z (the lower buttons; the upper buttons do nothing in this game)
- Skill level: = (the keypad’s # key) on the options screen, to cycle through Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced
- One or two players: 0 on the options screen
- Start: Enter
- Pause: P
- Player 2: I J K L to move, N to kick. The players take turns, swapping each time a Pengo is lost.
- Restart, full screen and save states: the emulator toolbar (move the mouse over the screen)
Gameplay
Each round is a field of ice blocks with Pengo in the middle and Sno-Bees hatching from eggs hidden in some of the blocks. Push against a block and it slides until it hits something, squashing any Sno-Bee in its path. Push against a block that cannot move and Pengo crumbles it instead, worth a few points or, if an egg was inside, 500. The round is over when every Sno-Bee is gone; the last one moves fastest, and if you do not catch it within a few seconds it goes into hibernation and the round ends anyway.
Sno-Bees can crumble blocks too, so walls do not keep them out for long. You can stun them two ways: push Pengo against the edge wall so it vibrates, which stuns any Sno-Bee touching it, or line up the three diamond blocks, which stuns all of them and pays 10,000 points in the open or 5,000 against a wall. A stunned Sno-Bee can be walked over for 100 points or squashed with a block for 400.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Crumbling an ice block | 30 |
| Crushing a block with an egg inside | 500 |
| Walking over a stunned Sno-Bee | 100 |
| Squashing one Sno-Bee with a block | 400 |
| Two, three or four at once | 1,600 / 3,200 / 6,400 |
| Diamond blocks in a row against a wall | 5,000 |
| Diamond blocks in a row in the open | 10,000 |
A fast round earns a time bonus: 5,000 points for clearing it in under 20 seconds, 2,000 under 30, 1,000 under 40 and 500 under 50. The game ends when you lose your last Pengo.
Skill levels
Beginner gives you five Pengos and never more than two Sno-Bees on the field at once. Intermediate is four lives and up to three Sno-Bees, Advanced three lives and up to four.
Tips
- Line them up. One block through two or three Sno-Bees pays far more than three separate kicks.
- Squash the stunned ones. A block is worth four times as much as walking over them.
- Go round, not through. Crumbling blocks eats time, and the time bonus is worth more than the blocks.
- Build a backstop. Push ordinary blocks into a line first so the diamond blocks stop where you want them, and only go for the diamonds early if they are already close together.
The story behind Pengo on the 5200
Pengo was developed by Coreland and released by Sega in arcades in 1982, where it did well in North America, with an estimated 2,000 cabinets sold. The coin-op had 16 rounds and played the tune “Popcorn” by Hot Butter over the action. Atari licensed it for its home systems: the 5200 cartridge came out in December 1983, programmed by Sean Hennessy with graphics by Jerome Domurat, the Atari 8-bit computer version in March 1984 and an Atari 2600 version in May 1984.
The 5200 game is close to the arcade original in look and play. The clearest difference is the music: Atari did not want to pay royalties on “Popcorn”, so the home version has a tune of its own. The cartridge is one of the scarcer Atari-published 5200 titles today.
