GALAGA is a space fighter game where you are the pilot of a spaceship referred to in-game as a Fighter, stationed in space, to defend your planet against the on-coming hordes of invaders. Your mission is to destroy as many of the enemy ships as possible.
These invaders arrive in convoys. They will attack you while swerving back and forth across the screen, dropping bombs all the while. A certain breed of the enemy ships, the Boss Galaga, can put out a tractor beam and capture your Fighter. That Fighter changes color from white to red and stays with that particular Boss Galaga for the rest of the game. You can get it back by destroying the Boss Galaga that captured it while they are both attacking your current Fighter. If you do this, the rescued Fighter changes color again from red back to white, and links up with your current Fighter. This doubles your fire power.
As your skill level increases, the number of attackers coming at you at any one time and the speed with which the enemy ships attack is gradually increased, plus their attack patterns become more and more complex.
Bonus Fighters are awarded to you periodically throughout the game as you reach or pass certain preselected point values ('Bonus Life' dip switch setting). Each enemy ship has an assigned point value (see Scoring below).
2 major new features of your GALAGA game are :
1) The player is given the chance to double his fire power at certain points throughout the game.
2) The game has a rapid fire (automatic firing) option whereby the player just holds the FIRE button down and his space fighter continues to fire at the Galaga army in bursts of 2 missiles each.
To double his fire power, the player must let one of his Fighters be captured by one of the Boss Galagas and then rescue it (CAUTION : If the player's last Fighter is captured, the game is over). The Boss Galaga ships MUST BE SHOT TWICE to destroy them. When shot once, they change color from green to blue. When shot again, they explode. The rescued Fighter then links up with the one that rescued it and they now work as a team - both moving together and firing at the same time.
The object of the game is to survive as long as possible while destroying as many enemies as you can. As you do this, each following convoy of enemies will be harder to destroy.
The game is made up of convoys of invading alien space ships. You, as defender, try to destroy as many convoys as you can.
The convoys are displayed one at a time at the top of the screen. They are made up, in order from top to bottom on the convoy, of Boss Galaga, Butterflies (red/white bug ships), and Bees (blue/yellow bug ships). These ships fly onto the screen from different angles, going by your position (giving you an opportunity to shoot them down) and then take up their positions in the convoy formation at the top of the screen.
In the 1st STAGE, the enemies do not drop bombs on you as they fly onto the screen and go by your position. However, they will in later stages.
After the convoy (or what's left of it after you've finished shooting at them as they fly onto the screen and head for their respective spots in the convoy formation) finishes forming up at the top of the screen, enemies will begin peeling off and diving at your fighter. They weave back and forth across the screen dropping bombs all the while.
The Boss Galaga can put out a tractor beam and capture your Fighter. When this happens, that Fighter changes color from white to red and stays with that particular enemy Boss Galaga for the rest of the game. You can get your Fighter back by destroying the Boss Galaga that captured it while they are both attacking your current fighter. The Boss Galaga MUST BE SHOT TWICE to destroy them. When shot once, they change color from green to blue. When shot again, they explode. If, however, you mistakenly shoot the captured fighter, it will be destroyed.
Bees and Butterflies will explode as soon as they are hit by one of your shots.
Starting with Stage 4, a squadron of special bonus enemies called "transforms" begin appearing. They're called transforms because a Bee will begin pulsating and move out of formation to change into these bonus enemies. They appear in the form of yellow scorpions in Stages 4, 5, and 6, green ships from "Bosconian" in Stages 8, 9, and 10, and Galaxian Flagships in Stages 12, 13, and 14. After that, the three different transforms repeat in the same order. Transforms are always worthwhile targets because they are not very aggressive and are worth more than the other enemies, and if all 3 transforms are destroyed, bonus points will be awarded.
When you destroy the last ship of a convoy, the screen gives the following display centered on the monitor screen : STAGE (and the number of the next stage).
The only exception to this would be when the next STAGE is a CHALLENGING STAGE. The first CHALLENGING STAGE comes at the end of the 2nd STAGE. After this, they come at the end of every third STAGE. When you destroy the last ship of the 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, 18th, etc. convoys, you will see this display centered on the monitor screen : CHALLENGING STAGE.
A CHALLENGING STAGE is made up of 40 enemy ships that fly by your fighter in 5 groups of 8 ships each while describing varying patterns. They do not drop any bombs and the object is to shoot down as many of them as you can. When you shoot down one COMPLETE formation of 8 enemy ships, bonus points (between 1000 and 3000 depending on the STAGE) are added to your score. If you can destroy all 40 GALAGAS, you will be awarded a SPECIAL BONUS OF 10000 POINTS for that particular CHALLENGING STAGE.
As you destroy more convoys, the attacks on you become faster, are in a more rapid succession, and follow trickier flight patterns. For instance, they will try to trap you in a cross fire, or in one corner of the screen, etc. You've really got to watch them closely. If they can't bomb you, they'll ram you in the rear. That's one of their favorite tricks, to fly in a circle and come up behind you.
Game description from www.arcade-history.com
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