Galaga '88 (Arcade Coin-op) for Experts Quiz

Answer: You choose whether to start with a single or double ship

Just like its predecessor, "Galaga'88" allows you to let your ships get captured and then free them again to merge into a multi-ship. However, this game allows you to merge three ships into a constellation no wider than the standard two-ship docking and with superior shot power. Starting with two ships of course gets you to that goal faster and with less risk since you will have to let yourself get captured only once.

Special geek info: The other choices all exist in different 1980s games: The starting stage choice is present in Atari's 1983 classic "Star Wars" and the other two are both available in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom".

Answer: The small white bugs diving straight down at you

Unlike all higher stages, Stage 1 and 2 do not include the obstacles between you and the formation during the aliens' initial attack, so this way of getting warp capsules is not available here. Your only way to get them is thus to shoot one of the large zigzagging opponents that result when the game merges two of the diver bugs for an attack.

Special geek info: If you plan to go for a dimension 4 or 5 victory, getting all the early warps on stages 3, 7 and 14 is extremely helpful since you will, on stage 15, be able to get the same bonus you can get in stage 25 (see question 8), but only if you are already on dimension 4!

Answer: 3, 7, 14, 18, 22 and 26

The game generally follows the pattern established by the first "Galaga" to have a challenging stage at the 3rd stage and then every 4 stages thereafter. However, this pattern is broken by the insertion of the first set of scrolling stages (8, 9 and 10), so you actually have to play six stages with lethal opponents between your second and third challenging stage.

Special geek info: You do not only get bonus points for a complete bonus stage but also for shooting each group of ships. Stage 22 has 8 groups (worth 3,000 each) on dimension 4, but only 4 (worth 3,400 each) on dimension 5. Combined with the ease of shooting 5,000-point bonus quartets on stages 19 to 21 while on dimension 4, this actually means that, against the trend, playing stages 19 to 22 on dimension 4 usually gives significantly higher points than warping to dimension 5 right after stage 18. (Do warp after 22, however - the next group of stages has the exact opposite trend!)

Answer: Blue - red - green - purple - white

You can actually answer this question without playing the game since the attract mode shows scenes from the first three dimensions. They are clearly blue, red and green. The background color has no impact on gameplay, but it serves as a nice reminder of what dimension you are in, helping you remember which special opponents you will see and what the bonus stage patterns are.

Special geek info: Except on dimension 5, most stages include only the special opponents for the dimension you are on. Stage 23 to 25 are an exception to this - they also include the opponent type from the dimension below. Dimension 5 always has a combination of 3 of the 4 special opponent types: Stages 19-21 do not have "bubble" bugs, stages 23-25 and 27 do not have the "fireworks" type and stage 28 does not have the "armor" bugs.

Answer: Leave exactly 10 blue bugs unhurt and shoot all the rest

This was a tricky question since the 22,000 will not come from one source but rather in 10 chunks of 2,200. From stage 4 onwards, the looping bugs can split into four smaller bugs and when you kill all of them, you get a bonus (the exact amount is determined by dimension and stage). This however only occurs when there are 10 or fewer enemies on screen. By leaving exactly 10 loopers, you set yourself up for shooting one such split group at a time (you have to shoot quite quickly or other bugs may come down without splitting). This strategy works on any stage, but on the 5th, it is by far the easiest to accomplish for a perfect set of 10. Another good opportunity for nabbing splitter bonuses (with much more lucrative 5,000 points per set) presents itself in the stages 19 to 21 of dimension 4; good players can easily manage between 6 and 8 such groups each on these stages.

Special geek info: The highest score you can get from a 4-bug group is 6,400, obtainable in stages 27 and 28 while on dimension 5. This is incidentally also the score you get for eliminating the extremely difficult formation of mini-torpedoes on stage 5/28.

Answer: 0

You get absolutely no points at all for this nasty opponent (you do however get points for his minions on screen at the moment he retreats). Unlike the final boss, this opponent does not die or explode at the end of the stage either but rather just retreats. You also won't see it again (the final bosses look different), so regardless how well you do in the game, at least one of the more powerful Galagans will survive the war - a quite disconcerting thought for a Terran space fighter.

Special geek info: This particular boss is what the final boss would look like if you could finish the game on dimension 1. Since the final boss bonus is always 100,000 multiplied by one less than your dimension, zero points is actually a quite adequate value.

Answer: The waltz

This particular oddity is owed to the fact that, for whatever reasons, (I do however suspect the manufacturer was running out of space in the game's ROM and had to cut something), the waltz is played twice during the game. You hear it first when you play stage 3 (on dimension 1) and then again on stage 22 (which can be any dimension but 1). The march is the only other piece played late enough that you can already have reached dimension 5, but there is no way to still be on dimension 1 that late in the game.

Special geek into: You may have wondered what happens if you fail to make any dimension warps early in the game and then hit the area where dimension 1 is "locked off" in the post-game progress screen. Well, no need to waste a credit: You are simply and silently deposited to dimension 2 from stage 11 onwards, which I personally consider disappointing. "Game over" would actually be more befitting those cowards...

Answer: Your ship will immediately become a triple if it is not already.

The tripling capsule is probably the nicest thing available in the game as it essentially provides you with one or even two extra lives when you have been hit in the previous three, extremely hard, stages. It is thus usually advisable to not risk a ship capture in stage 23 to 25 even if you do still have spares available (freeing yourself again without losing lives is quite hard in these stages). Just do not let that last opponent escape and make sure it would not drop a normal warp capsule (the normal one overrides the special one).

Special geek info: With these possible two extra lives, the two you can get off the similar hidden stage 15 bonus and the maximum of four points-based ones, you can get 8 extra lives in the game. Add in that, at the most customer-friendly settings, you get 5 lives to start with, and the maximum number of times you can die in one game is 13.

Answer: Finally, peace has been restored to the galaxy.

"I can't stop thinking about it" is from dimension 2 in a message of doubt that your victory was a permanent one (and enticing you to try again to beat the game on a higher dimension). Dimension 3's end message contains a soldier's ramblings about the lack of food and entertainment in the battle zone, dimension 4 presents the dying words of an opponent's foot soldier who has been told that their planet was in grave danger and needed urgent defence against the evil humans (didn't they tell you the same in the recruiting office), but dimension 5 is the true prize in the form of a young cute female officer wishing to spend the rest of her life in romance with you (and proving that the intended audience for this game was 100% male).

Special geek info: You also get 10,000 points for each ship you have in reserve at the end of the game. If you start with a single and never get killed (using the special capsules to get yourself a triple), you can have a maximum of 8 ships left at the most liberal settings of the game.

Answer: Three

Apart from the medal-decorated cutie proposing to marry you at the end of Dimension 5, there is one more girl in the game who will excitedly chatter something in her microphone as you enter the final scrolling backdrop on stage 27. This girl, while always giving off the same unintelligible squeaks, shows up with two different images: Dimension 2 and 3 have a black-haired one and Dimensions 4 and 5 a blonde. This thus makes a total of three.

Special geek info: If you're not quite good enough to beat the game on one credit, find a machine where the operator has enabled the continue mode (the game was one of the first to support it). Be warned, however: You can continue only up to the end of stage 25, so if you just want to beat the game regardless of cost, make sure you do get yourself killed off just before the end of 25 (crash into the second to last opponent with your last ship), continue, shoot the last opponent, grab the special egg and play on with a triple and maximum reserves!