Centipede (Game Boy)

The Game Boy Centipede has a horribly convoluted history – it was first released as a monochrome title by Accolade in 1992, which was followed in 1995 by a compilation title with Super Game Boy support (Arcade Classic No. 2: Centipede & Millipede), published by Nintendo and developed by The Code Monkeys. Next, in an endeavor to wring a few more bucks from the game, Majesco picked up the license, disabled Millipede and the Super Game Boy features, and released separate versions for monochrome Game Boy and Game Boy Color in 1998. Confusing as this seems, all versions have label revisions giving the specific version away. For a Millipede game, the soundtrack is incredible.

Conversely, Millipede never saw a similar standalone release, nor did any of the other Arcade Classic games, probably because this ridiculous marketing ploy taught somebody a lesson.

While this page covers all releases of the game, it largely concerns the Majesco versions due to the wealth of content removed from them.

Cut Millipede Mode
The entire Millipede game and the Game Select screen from Arcade Classic No. 2 both still exist in the 1998 monochrome ROM. They can be accessed by setting a single call and one pointer: modify, , or use Game Genie codes  to start at the Game Select menu.

The graphics and pointers associated with the menu graphics have been completely removed, so while its functionality is intact, the menu will be glitched. Millipede is selected by default and can be launched with Start; pressing B selects Centipede and Start will launch it as usual.

Millipede Music
Every tune from Arcade Classic No. 2 exists in the Majesco versions and can be accessed in exactly the same way: changing offsets, or using Game Genie codes. The selected song will play instead at the Centipede title screens in the monochrome and US GBC versions. Replace ?? with the respective song ID.

Unused Super Game Boy Features
In the 1998 Majesco releases, Super Game Boy functionality was disabled (though not removed from the monochrome ROM), likely because the developers were too lazy to fix the Super Game Boy palettes for both the Morning Star and Majesco logos. The enhancements can be re-enabled in both 1998 releases by setting the Super Game Boy flag: modify or use Game Genie code.

This works well in the monochrome game, but in the Game Boy Color release the features were mostly removed and have bad pointers everywhere, however the command load and call functions are completely intact so they will still load.

DATA_SND
Aside from the standard INIT DATA_SND packets in all versions since the 1995 compilation, there is an additional listing which is also loaded.

Planned Super Game Boy Soundtrack
A Super Game Boy soundtrack was planned and was ultimately ended early on during development. The DATA_SND commands located at are the last remaining piece of evidence.

The rest of the unused command listing starts at in all versions.

Development Information
Located from in the 1992 version and  within all versions reads some development information listing filenames and assembler information.

wfd vol dec mix title tune hiscore extra life end game jingle

European Version
The original 1992 release contains different music than all other versions. Neither Millipede nor the Super Game Boy features exist in this version.