Pitfall!

Pitfall Harry is on a mission: He has three lives and twenty minutes to collect 32 treasures strewn throughout a mysterious jungle. Will you help him achieve this goal?

Will you?

Pitfall! has 255 screens laid out in a gigantic straight line, each one unique, 32 of which have treasure. He can run and scroll the screen to the right or the left in search for the treasures. The sheer scope of the game was quite a feat for the time. Each screen has some combination of a vine (for swinging, and yelling like Tarzan), logs (rolling or stationary) that impair your movement and steal points somehow, a stationary lake that may or may not have crocodiles (you can jump on their heads when their mouths are closed, otherwise they eat you), a lake that will open and close you can drown in, a tar pit that’s either stationary or opens and closes that you can drown in, a ladder (or holes) that lead to an underground area that may or may not have a Deadly Scorpion in it. Whew! Like I said, the game was crazy-detailed for a game on the Atari 2600.

Sadly, although I played the game for months on end, I was never able to get all 32 treasures. It somehow never occurred to me to make or use a map. I was, however able to run to the right for the entire twenty minutes without losing a life. That has to account for something, right?

One Response to “Pitfall!”

  1. [...] really liked the two Pitfall! games for the Atari 2600. I liked taking Pitfall Harry on whatever wacky adventures the [...]

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