ARCADE GAME SERIES: GALAGA - High Score Strategy

I have been challenged by an individual... a pretty cool guy to a high score contest.
I'm sharing my tricks with him, and subsequently anyone else that sees this, or reads this.
Tips
1. Leave the top row of red ships alive that are near the Galagas for a chance at killing the Galagas for more points.
- They're worth 1600 points diving with two red moths
- They're worth 800 points diving with one red moth
- They are worth 400 diving alone
- They are worth 150 when not diving
2. Kill the blue flies / bees / assholes as they're flying in. if they aren't there the subsequent pattern of enemies diving and shooting is somewhat easier to deal with.
3. Perfect scores are worth 10,000 points. Kill 40 dudes, make 10,000 bonus points when it is done.
4. The trifecta enemies are easier to kill with this strategy in theory.
5. Stage 6, the incoming enemies getting into formation do not attack or suicide bomb.
6. Challenge stages One and Two allow you to sit in the center while shooting at the right pace without moving much if at all.
7. Stage 10 things get dicey, enemy aggression levels increase, kill them all.
8. This should be at the top of the list. It is worth having two ships side by side for the increase width of firepower. Losing one is hard, but if you can get to stage 14 - 15 consistently you're probably good enough to get them back.
9. Center of the screen can offer you better options for SOME situations. Don't cram yourself in a corner if you can help it.
10. - insert your advice here -
I wanna know any other strategies out there. Granted I didn't look very hard for videos. I'm just sharing what I learned. If you have a quality source of information about getting better at galaga I'm all ears.

[@black99vett]

If you're not swearing you're not playing GALAGA - LMAO! Thanks for the tips.

[@sandal_thong8631]

The other day I saw the Ms. Pac-Man episode of _Friends_ where Phoebe swears like a sailor upon losing at Ms Pac-Man, just as the little boy walks in with Ross. I think they were also trying to remove naughty words from the high scores, so he wouldn't see them.

[@Swordsfor200Alex]

I held the national high school for 6 months in 1983 according to the arcade magazine. The local arcade operator sent my info to them. We also made a deal not to play on Friday or Saturday night. 3,255,870 - 2 hours 50 mins - 42 extra ships - stage 178.

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

Holy shit! that's fantastic!

[@tonymaurice4157]

@@MaxPowerCrafts where can you find cloak and dagger? Any home retro consoles for that game?

[@MataMarciano]

This is the Galaga video we all deserve! Came for tips, stayed for entertainment.

[@spencergear214]

Found the words I couldn't haha

[@Pink.Petasma]

Facts. Will return for the colorful commentary.

[@skysurfer]

I share your disdain for the red harbingers of death. One of them ran off with my old lady during my second tour in Nam'. Never saw it coming. Cute kids though, despite the whole inter-species thing.

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

And how could you see it coming really. I'm glad we can both agree its not the kids' fault, a space craft sized alien is somewhat hard to avoid if it wants something at mach 9.

[@SuperBuildsInMC]

This was a rather entertaining video tbh, I'll try that strategy after I make this comment, but I watched the entire thing, and i was laughing the entire way, thanks for the video/tips!

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

Heh thanks! And good luck!

[@neno1385]

Loved it, had me swettin' , nice!

[@brickrunner9279]

Fantastic video. I was on the edge of my seat hoping you’d get your high score and I think you’ve hilariously articulated the emotions of everyone in the universe who has ever played Galaga. I just want to live too!!! lol.

[@lizandrews1986]

stayed for the score! 😁 Congrats!

[@fb341]

Galaga was my game back in the 80’s! Let me start by saying that it would take me 40 minutes per million points, and I’d often draw a crowd when I was in my groove. My highest game was just under 4 million, and I’ll explain my strategy. Note that I’m only talking about the full console version of Galaga. It was never about focusing on shooting bugs while they’re flying vs at rest, or any other particular order. Just clear stages as fast and efficient as possible, mostly while the bugs are descending to line up. Staying out of the corners, always moving, always controlling your shots, getting all perfect challenging stages, and ALWAYS ALWAYS using a double ship are the keys to this game. You’ve got to get that double ship ASAP! That’s the only way to get anywhere in Galaga. When I say control your shots, I mean try not to miss. You can only have few (4?) shots (single or double shots) on the screen at a time. If you’ve fired all of your shots, you won’t be able to shoot again either till those shots hit something or they go off the screen. Making your shots count as much as possible will allow you to clear levels faster. Every challenging stage has key positions where you can sit to easily and perfectly shoot all of the bugs and earn that perfect score. The key is to figure out those ideal spots. Every challenging stage can be perfected, so keep working at it to figure them out. Since the game stops giving extra ships after hitting a million points (at least the original full console version), my goal was to not lose any ships till I hit that first million. If I lost a single ship before a million, I’d abort the game and start over. Even if I was at 600,000, I’d start over if I lost a ship. As I recall, you can only earn a total of 40 extra ships, so you need to make them last as long as possible after that first million. When you really get going with a double ship, and the bugs are flying at their fastest speeds, the stages absolutely fly by. It always gave me a head rush! There are some other interesting things to note about Galaga. You can actually disarm the bugs for the entire game. If memory serves, you’d shoot all of the bugs in stage-2 except for the upper left most blue bug. Then you wouldn’t shoot at all while it passed by something like 20 times. Then, you’d shoot it, and the bugs would be disarmed for the rest of the game. Don’t quote me on those steps, but it’s something like that. I only disarmed the bugs a couple times because it was boring. I had to play at full tilt or not at all. Another interesting bit of trivia is that when you have lots of extra ships, those extra ships only display half way across the screen. The rest of the extras are in memory. The same is true for level-badges-they only go to half way across the screen. Also, when you have so many ships and level-badges, they will actually overlap a little in the middle. I have one last interesting bit that comes to mind. Only player-2 on the full or seated console displays the millionth digit, so I would always play second player even if it meant putting in 2 quarters to only kill off the first player. Player one’s millionth digit just goes off the screen to the left. I hope this helps those of you looking to improve your game.

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

That's freakin awesome man. Thank you very much for sharing, and 4 million! Efficiency in clearing stages fast seems to hold so much less risk that it's worth it for getting further for sure, and I wholeheartedly agree about the double ship! Having never hit a million, I can say with a certainty that I didn't know that about the stage counters or the extra lives. Good stuff!

[@emixinfinity9053]

This is not a commentary this is research you deserve an award man.Also thanks for the Advice.

[@josephlalock8378]

it's the bottom left blue guy and you let him fly by approx 15 minutes, after he flies by 4 consecutive times without firing, he's done. you can do it on any stage but stage 1 is the easiest. i always kind of figured it was 256 times based on it being 8 bit but never counted it. also, they start firing again after the stages reset(255). the reason level badges only appear to go halfway across the screen is because the markers change for 5 waves,10 waves, etc. and resets after 256 stages. player one's 7th digit does not go off the screen, there just isn't one otherwise if you got the high score it would be the actual score, not the rolled over score. there is no 40 ship limit either, there are just no more extra men awarded after 1 million. the amount of men possible is just a by product of how the operator set it up. every 60k or every 70k. or none .i did play a machine that only gave 2 extra men per game. 4 million is quite a score. congrats! i could do it in the 80s but nowadays, 250-300k tops. but nowadays i prefer galaxian to galaga.

[@sandal_thong8631]

@@josephlalock8378 I just read the web page where they decompiled and tested the code to find out how the disarming worked. It said the 4 blue guys on far left and far right can shoot from position 0 (or column 0), which is off the left side of the screen. When they do that it doesn't clear the register when their shot leaves the screen. I thought he said 6, but pausing the screen, there's a maximum of 8 shots they shoot at a time. So if you can handle 2 or all 4 blue guys, then the time it takes should go faster. Also you might want to move around so that they will more likely shoot from position 0.

[@fernandosalas8589]

Thanks for tip and it wasn't boring I felt your enthusiasm.

[@tds7531]

Came looking for brass and found gold. I gotta agree that if you're not swearing you're not playing Galaga. Great game man! I am the menace at work who will max the score and leave it. It gets restarted almost weekly now. Lol

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

XD Hell yeah - It's been like 4 + years I wanna see if I do any better than I did back then. Swearing is essential, it reminds the game that you are playing it!

[@wholelottarosie]

Can I just say I laughed my ASS off this entire video. Thank you.

[@shonc8338]

To turn this game over which I've only managed to do just once you really have to be in the zone. You are not even thinking but acting on instinct this takes years of playing to do. I've sank so many quarrters into galaga I could have a new car right now

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

Holy crap, I can only imagine. It would definitely take one Toyota's worth of quarters to be able to do that.

[@ultralance]

Best advice I can give for getting farther - when it starts getting harder, focus on clearing out either left or right half of screen. Enemies on the left side of formation come down and go right, and vice versa. So if you clear out the right half of the formation, you can dodge to the right much more safely, and head back left to shoot more when you feel it's safe. Keeping reds alive isn't a bad idea to score some extra points in the earlier levels, but if you're really trying to get as high a score as possible, I think clearing the levels ASAP is a better strategy, for most part - you get the higher point value if you shoot them while flying in anyway, and if you're fast enough, you can have most if not all of the screen clear. Just make sure to leave two+ boss galagas at top of screen, because they'll never do the tractor beam if there's only one in formation. lol

[@lynottfan4four826]

I enjoyed that ! Thank you.

[@gergpoo]

Thanks for this video. My dad loved Galaga as a kid so naturally I thought I would give it a try. My high before this video was around 142k, which brought it up to like 193k. Thanks!

[@gotaigo]

Awesome! I just got the arcade 1 up Galaga. You must have the real thing. The 1 up version has a glitch in its audio and sometimes makes a “popping” noise ; u can especially hear it when your shipped gets caught and they play that music. Thanks for the tip! I think I’ll try now on my 1 up!

[@tulioalopez]

Thank you, I few days ago I order a new ps4 and this will be one of my first games to buy. Thank you

[@pxritus]

Just got me a high score first try using this strat, never really focused on point farming all that much aside from the bonus stages. I was trying to beat u but u ended up getting 5k more points lol.

[@mistori1]

I loved this video 😂 Great Tips & premo swears. My hands are sadly much older now - but this is still hella fun. Cheers!.

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

My hands too are almost 3 years older than when I put this up. I am going to try my hand at this again some time ^__^ Premo Swears XD 11 / 10 Thank you!

[@RC-dj8rp]

You Sir are hilarious! I enjoyed the pottymouth commentary very much and the score tips...I will enjoy eviscerating my enemies at my upcoming competition! My gaming group record is only 65,000ish! TY and I am clicking that red button but fuck those red bugs!-

[@kst3xh]

My boy, you need to come to the St Louis Science Center and check the gaming exhibit and play some Galaga...its free and its on the actual arcade machine! >:)

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

I ever find myself in St Louis you can bet I'll give it a go!

[@theobserver314]

Bruh.😀😁😂

[@engyehkong]

If you let one of the bees alone on stage one for about 15 minutes in the beginning, it will tweek the game,. The bad guys not shoot only fly.

[@philiptynan9159]

Ooh you had me on the edge of my seat.

[@ronkyle6385]

Well, you asked, so... 10. It is silly to waste time worrying about getting 1600 per big ship and leaving the red ships. So you come out of the 2nd stage with 15000 instead of 10000; who cares? After 2nd stage, it's all about just killing everybody as they come on the screen. Trust. 11. With one ship, you can stay in the middle for the 1st challenge stage, most of the 2nd, none of the 3rd, none of the 4th and all of the 5th. With 2 ships, you can just stay in the middle for the 1st, 2nd. and 5th. 12. The timing of your button presses is key. You can only shoot 2 shots on the screen at once. If ships are closer or moving faster, you have to fire more quickly. 13. As ships come in, wait to shoot your first shot and make sure you don't miss the ship. 14. Play one more time.

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

All of that is logical and good stuff man :) I'm going to try again with that in mind and go for as long as possible. Thanks for takin the time to lay it out!

[@oldcutler100]

I bought a Nintendo from Amazon really cheap and it had this game preloaded. I went to two youtube videos for tips, one was yours and another with this guy who scored over one million points. The Galaga that came with the Nintendo was far more harder than both of yours. I tried the techniques from both and we only got to level 8. I think we got the version that rip off quarters from customers. My friends also watched and they was saying that you guys might have the baby version. Try the Nintendo version much harder.

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

Hehe, I don't doubt the NES version being harder. Both due to the controller and fitting it on an NES cart and making it work and any other potential fixes, or alterations to AI, and even the screen space differences. (All theories, I don't know for certain) My version from steam, as far as I can tell is the arcade accurate version, and I'm willing to bet that just the framerate being consistent helps. I'll stick to my baby version ^__^ It stresses me out enough as it is.

[@garychiasson935]

Used to play this years ago . There was a cheat. If you left 2 aliens left , and dodged them for a length of time they would eventually stop firing middles at you . For the rest of the game none of them will fire at you for the rest of the game. Is anyone else aware of this?

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

Another guy in the comments said the same thing, And I vaguely remember hearing about it as a kid. It seems like it'd be illegitimate for a score run, but really good for practice!

[@garychiasson935]

@@MaxPowerCrafts Guess what after sending that, I looked it up and found a video on it . You shoot all bugs on the first board except for the 2 yellow ones on the far left. You dodge them and the missilles

[@garychiasson935]

It’s called the not shoot trick . There is more than one video. It’s weird though . I grew up in Canada and a kid told me about this in like 1984. How did he find out about it back then? Crazy

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

@@garychiasson935 All those exploits, or dev cheats that stay in games were always word of mouth back in the day. Arcades were the absolute coolest place to hang out that people either experimented, or heard a guy talk about something HE heard a guy talk about. Before there was the internet it was all about telling people often unsubstantiated rumors about strategies. And sometimes they were real!

[@garychiasson935]

@@MaxPowerCrafts So true. Magical times!!

[@aakankshachoudhary8532]

I've got to beat my boss in this game; guess I got what I needed (evil laugh)!

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

Haha, get em!!!

[@RC-dj8rp]

Did you beat him? If yes, how is your new job going??? lol

[@theobserver314]

*[TAKING NOTES INTENSIFIES]*

[@DanielSchmidt94521]

I still have my Galaga on NES. I remember my high level was 27.

[@derekdoyle8596]

Funny as helllll 😂😂

[@DanielSchmidt94521]

They get real aggressive after a while.

[@sandal_thong8631]

I'm glad to see someone better than me, in this case really good at a game actually record a good video! So many reviews or look-backs have someone who can make reasonably good videos but can't play worth shit! I never made a challenge stage past the second, I think. I wonder how many there are until they repeat? Talking while playing is not a good idea. You may as well just play well, then go back and record dialog over it. My cousin's son didn't want to play video games, but just watch others play video games on KZbin. I asked if he wanted to see games I played as a kid. "No," he said. Then I saw someone (Fluffy?) talk about confronting his kid who just wanted to watch people play video games because they were "experts." So I guess that's a thing and my cousin isn't retarded!

[@BeachesBeTrippin]

that was great lol !!

[@matthewvelasco2648]

“Your scorpion hands... claws they call them... who the fuck cares” 😂😂😂

[@JonKlinkel]

I think you'd find you get more points faster just going through the stages. ;)

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

I've tried both, and in practice, this is the highest score I ever got while also not going much further in level count. Best solution for me to get a higher score... get gud :)

[@JonKlinkel]

Well, yeah - I was more saying the time saved not specifically waiting to clear everything you'd make up going through levels and getting to where you get more points for things - under the assumption you're probably able to do so.

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

AH, Yes, for sure! I might have to come back and try. New goal is make it to 1,000,000 points, and everything strategy would be fair game.

[@sandal_thong8631]

@@MaxPowerCrafts Including the no-enemy-shots?

[@OOTB11]

Thanks for the great video and tips! Which hardware were you using in this video?

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

Just a PC and 660i videocard I think?

[@OOTB11]

Max Power Crafts huh the full arcade version Galaga on PC- can you please provide the pointer to it?

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

@@OOTB11 store.steampowered.com/app/403430/ That's the one!

[@spencergear214]

Haha dope

[@abrahampadilla7191]

Some guy at my local arcade has 390000. I really want to beat him.

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

Destroy him -___- In the comments there was at least one guy who was better than I am (Really not too hard) and shared some really good tips. But stick time / playing more will get you there! Good luck!

[@sandal_thong8631]

Gotta use the cheat to take away their shots. You still will have trouble not crashing into them, but it's one less thing. If this had made it to the Atari 2600, then no shooting would be "Teddy Bear" mode.

[@J-Ball]

Double your points by shooting the galagas while in flight.

[@Csilk]

ya it even shows that in the attract, hard to believe people miss this.

[@joned1000]

@@Csilk but you get 1600 points if you wait for them to attack in formation.

[@Csilk]

@@joned1000 yeah the hidden scoring mechanic tbh I have only ever played it for fun and not to max score, games like Exerion I played pretty hard to maximize scoring but for some reason whenever I play GALAGA I just play like a scrub. :)

[@sandal_thong8631]

You may as well take it easy in the first few waves to get as many points as you can, since you'll just shoot like crazy later.

[@lupo19fun]

Gg

[@AgentWarriorX]

I made it up to stage 40

[@sydhames3243]

So why exactly do you kill the blues first?

[@Alignchakra22]

Because the blue fucks don't give you extra points if you keep them alive for longer.

[@ultralance]

2dudes1ship

[@bobbylight111]

weak

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

lol Well, you're not wrong.

[@gameaddict6969]

Left the video because of the horrible commentary..

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

I don't know what to tell you man. It's from 2017. You get to like what you like, or not like what you don't.

[@damon2874]

Did you hear about rudy ferretti and his ex girlfriend and him. He thinks he's the best gamer in the world but to me rudy ferretti was a fake gamer and Atari age didnt want nothing to do with him and Brett Weiss said rudy was a weird guy and a neighbor that lived across from where the murder happened she said rudy would hit on other girls in the appartment building and he would run around with a gun hanging out of his pocket. And I saw the KZbin video where he was holding a gun and now that he's gone 4ever and I feel sad for amy molter and they said amy was a good person and many people are not surprised that rudy killed amy and plus he had a history of beating his girlfriends on a daily basis. And you just interview a woman beater and murder and does that make you feel.

[@MaxPowerCrafts]

All the respect in the world to you. I did not interview anyone, I simply talked over me trying to get a high score in Galaga. Also didn't know who Rudy was till I googled it and he sounds like a real piece of shit, and that was a sad story for Amy.