What is Centipede Garden?
A vertical shooter where a many segmented centipede zigzags down through a patch of mushrooms while your watering can robot at the bottom shoots upward, knocking off one segment at a time. It plays like the classic arcade bug shooter of the same name, with brand new mushrooms, bugs and sounds.
The centipede crawls sideways until a mushroom or the edge blocks it, then drops one row and turns around. More mushrooms means a faster descent, fewer mushrooms means long runs across a row. Once it reaches the bottom it stays in the robot's zone, bouncing up and down after you. Every segment you hit leaves a mushroom behind, and the segments behind it break off, grow a new head and crawl the other way.
Why does hitting the head make two centipedes?
The head picks the path and the body follows it. Hit a segment in the middle and everything behind it has no head to follow, so the first remaining segment becomes a new head and from then on two centipedes come down on two different paths.
| Target | Points | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Centipede head | 100 | A mushroom sprouts where it was and the next segment becomes the new head |
| Body segment | 10 | A mushroom sprouts there and the tail breaks off as a second centipede |
| Mushroom | 1 when destroyed | Takes four hits, chipping a little each time |
| Spider | 300 · 600 · 900 | Worth more the closer it is to the robot |
| Flea | 200 | Takes two hits and speeds up after the first |
| Scorpion | 1,000 | Crosses the upper patch and poisons every mushroom it touches |
Shooting the tail first just shortens the centipede. Shooting the middle doubles the number of heads, and two heads feel twice as fast. The usual plan is tail first on long centipedes and head first on short ones.
What do the mushrooms do?
Mushrooms are both the obstacles that turn the centipede and the shields that stop your water. About thirty are scattered across the upper patch at the start, and one more grows every time you remove a segment.
- Four hits to clear. Each hit chips a piece off the cap and the fourth removes it for 1 point.
- Mushrooms in the robot zone are the dangerous ones. A centipede at the bottom turns at every mushroom and burrows toward you. Clear the low ones whenever you get a moment.
- Purple means poison. A mushroom the scorpion crossed turns purple, and a centipede head that touches it stops zigzagging and dives straight down.
- Spiders eat mushrooms. Wherever the spider wanders, mushrooms vanish. When the robot zone runs empty, a flea drops in and plants new ones.
When do the spider, flea and scorpion appear?
The three bugs show up on their own timers, independent of the centipede, and each one changes the patch in its own way. Spiders appear from wave 1, fleas from wave 2 and scorpions from wave 3.
| Bug | Movement | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Spider (orange) | Zigzags across the robot zone | Eats mushrooms in its path and costs a robot if it touches you |
| Flea (blue) | Drops straight down one column | Plants mushrooms as it falls. Only appears when fewer than six mushrooms are near the robot zone |
| Scorpion (purple) | Crawls slowly across one upper row | Poisons every mushroom it passes. Never comes down to the robot |
What changes as the waves go up?
With every wave the centipede gets longer and faster, and every fourth wave adds another lone head that follows it down. The garden changes color too, cycling through five themes: spring, summer, autumn, a pink garden and a mint garden.
Wave 1 has ten segments and wave 9 onward has eighteen. Clear the centipede on wave 20 and you have saved the garden. Lose all your robots before that and the game ends with the score so far. You earn an extra robot every 12,000 points, up to six.
What happens when I lose a robot?
Touching a segment, the spider or the flea costs one robot. Then every chipped or poisoned mushroom regrows from the bottom up and pays 5 points each. After that the centipede comes back from the top and the same wave continues.
The more damage the patch has, the bigger the regrowth bonus, so losing a robot is not all bad. The restored mushrooms do give the centipede more footholds, though, so the next run is harder.
Tips
- Clear the mushrooms on the centipede's way down first. With nothing to turn on, it has to crawl the whole row, which takes time and gives you many clean shots.
- Only one drop flies at a time. The next one leaves only after the last one hits something or exits the top, so shooting up a column with no mushrooms between you and the centipede is the fastest fire rate.
- Keep the robot zone empty. A centipede at the bottom turns at every mushroom and gets unpredictable. Be grateful when the spider eats them.
- Shoot the spider when it is close. It is worth 300 from far away and 900 right in front of you, but it costs a robot on contact, so keep room to dodge sideways.
- The scorpion is a 1,000 point gift. It crosses the top slowly, so line it up while the centipede is still far. Miss it and poisoned mushrooms send centipedes straight down.
Controls
- Mouse: move it over the screen and the robot follows. No clicking needed, the water fires by itself.
- Phone and tablet: touch and drag. The robot rides a little above your finger so your hand never covers it.
- Keyboard: arrow keys or WASD move in four directions inside the bottom quarter of the patch. Space or Enter starts a game.
Your best score and the sound setting are saved only in this browser. Sound can be turned off with the button at the top right of the game.