How to play Galaga online
- Move your ship: left and right arrow keys
- Fire: Z or X. Hold the key down for rapid fire.
- Choose 1 or 2 players: F2 (Select), or the up and down arrows before the game
- Choose the difficulty (Novice, Advanced or Expert): the left and right arrows before the game
- Start: F3 (Reset), Z or X
- Pause: F4
- Both the USA (NTSC) and Europe (PAL) cartridges are on this page; use the switch above the emulator.
Gameplay
You start with four ships: one in play and three in reserve. Each wave, the Galagans swoop onto the screen, settle into formation, and then break off in groups to dive at you, firing as they come. You lose a ship if a shot or an alien hits it, and the game ends when the last one is gone. Each wave is faster and more aggressive than the one before.
The aliens come in three ranks: blue Drones, red Hornets, and yellow Flagships, which fly with escorts. A Flagship can capture your ship with a beam. To get it back, shoot that Flagship while it is diving. If you hit it while it sits in formation, your captured ship is destroyed along with it. A rescued ship docks beside your own, and from then on you fly two ships that move and fire together.
After the second wave, and then after every third wave, comes a Challenging Stage: five groups of eight aliens fly past in set patterns, and you shoot as many as you can before they leave.
| Target | In formation | Diving |
|---|---|---|
| Drone (blue) | 50 | 100 |
| Hornet (red) | 80 | 160 |
| Flagship with two escorts | – | 1,600 |
| Flagship with one escort | – | 800 |
| Flagship alone | – | 400 |
In a Challenging Stage, hitting all 40 aliens earns 10,000 points; otherwise you get 100 per hit plus a bonus for each full group of eight.
Tips
- Start on Novice. It gives you time to learn the attack patterns before the higher levels speed things up.
- Strike after a Flagship falls. When you shoot one down in flight, the rest of the fleet stops firing for a few seconds. Use that moment to clear the escorts.
- Only risk a capture with a ship in reserve. Being captured costs you the ship in play, so you need a spare one to win it back.
- Remember the double ship is a bigger target. Two ships fire twice as much, but together they make a wider target.
The story behind Galaga
Galaga was designed at Namco by Shigeru Yokoyama as the sequel to Galaxian (1979), and Midway released it in North America. The idea of capturing the player’s ship came from a film Yokoyama had seen, in which a ship was caught in a beam. The game became one of the big hits of the golden age of arcades.
The 7800 version was made by General Computer Corporation, the company that also designed the 7800 itself. Galaga was among the thirteen games announced for the console’s launch in 1984, but the sale of Atari’s consumer division to Jack Tramiel put everything on hold. The 7800 finally reached shops in 1986, and Galaga followed in August that year. On Atari consoles it was new: there was no Galaga for the 2600 or 5200. In 2009 its source code was released to the public, along with that of other early 7800 games.
