Pengo (Arcade)

Pengo is a Swiss stop-motion claymated television series penguin who kills Sno-bees by crushing them with ice blocks.

Sometimes he'll crush the ice blocks too.

Unused Graphics


Animations for the Pengo and Sno-bees in the intro walking away from the screen. This never happens - the Pengoes and Sno-bees walk towards the screen, stop, and then the intro's over.

Unused Music


In Sets 1 and 3 (see below), this track is used when the maze is being drawn. It's unused in sets 2 and 4.

Hidden Credits


A hidden credits screen can be accessed by holding Up and Button 1 for both players, then pressing 1P Start.

Other Developer Text
Two other chunks of developer text can be found in game memory. The first starts at :

The second begins at and gives credit to a fourth staff member. Note that each line is repeated 48 times!

Revision Differences
There are four distinct versions of Pengo in the MAME romset: Set 1 revision C, Set 2, Set 3, and Set 4. The chronological order seems to be this:
 * Set 1C
 * Set 3
 * Set 4
 * Set 2

Test Menu Bug
In Set 1C, the test mode's dip switches display will not properly track the number of points needed for a bonus life. Fixed in all other sets.

ACT or RD
In Set 1 only, each stage is referred to as an ACT. For whatever reason, this was changed to RD in all other sets.

Default High Scores and Names
Sets 2 and 4 changed the default high score from 20,000 to 0.

Set 1's default high score names spell out "AKIRA" vertically, the name of the game's programmer. All other sets list a "MMIZU", who might be a different member of the staff, but that name doesn't come up in the game's code at all.

Note that in Sets 2 and 4, the formatting of "RD" was changed from " RD" to "RD ".

Demo Version
For some reason, the demo from the other 3 sets was altered in Set 2 so that Pengo dies almost immediately.

Curtain Speed
This is the speed of the curtain before each level. This was sped up in Set 2 so that it only lasts for a few frames.

Maze Drawing Speed
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Sets 1 and 3 will take a few seconds to draw the maze before each level starts.

This was removed in Sets 2 and 4, where the maze is set up almost instantly.

Main Theme
Probably the most significant difference. In Set 1 and 3, the main theme is an 8-bit version of the song "Popcorn".

This was changed in Sets 2 and 4 to an original track, probably due to copyright issues. It's this track that is in all home versions of the game.

While the newer track is longer, the old track has a feature that the new track doesn't: When time is running out, the track will speed up.

Game Flow Changes
Set 4 introduced a number of changes to make the game flow faster than in previous sets.
 * Number of frames before the level completion time is shown changed from 32 to 8.
 * Number of frames after a time bonus is calculated changed from 128 to 64.
 * Number of frames before the screen wipes after the player has died changed from 128 to a single frame.

Additional changes were made in Set 2:
 * Delay before player can move at the start of a stage changed from 64 frames to 16 frames.
 * Delay before the next level loads after an intermission changed from 64 frames to 16 frames.
 * Delay before the sky rapidly changes colors in the intro changed from 64 frames to 48 frames.