Pengo is a 1982 arcade maze action video game developed by Coreland and released by Sega Enterprises Inc. in the USA on October 24, 1982. The player uses a four-position joystick and a single button to control Pengo, a penguin character. Pressing the button while pushing the joystick against an ice block will cause it to slide in that direction until it hits another block or a wall if the space ahead of it is empty. If that space is occupied, pressing the button will crush the block instead. The goal is to destroy every Sno-Bee on the board by sliding ice blocks to crush them, crushing blocks that contain unhatched Sno-Bee eggs, or running over them after stunning them at a wall. Doing so in less than 60 seconds awards bonus points based on the time taken. At the start of each round, a certain number of eggs hatch into Sno-Bees, while other blocks flash to indicate that they contain eggs. As the player destroys active Sno-Bees, new ones hatch from the eggs to replace them. Crushing multiple Sno-Bees with one block awards extra points. The Sno-Bees can crush blocks in an attempt to reach Pengo. Pushing against a wall causes it to vibrate and temporarily stuns any Sno-Bees in contact with it; the player may then crush them with a block or simply run over them to destroy them. Three blocks in each round are marked with diamonds and cannot be crushed. Bonus points are awarded for forming a continuous vertical or horizontal line of these blocks: 10,000 if none of them are touching a wall, or 5,000 otherwise. Forming such a line also stuns every active Sno-Bee for a short time. If the player survives for two minutes without either losing a life or completing the round, all active Sno-Bees become Blobs. Their movement speed increases and they will move directly toward one of the walls, crushing all ice blocks in their path. Once a Blob reaches a wall, it will move toward a corner of the screen and disappear upon reaching it. Once all Blobs have either disappeared or been destroyed, the round ends. If the player destroys one of the last two Sno-Bees, the survivor will become a Blob after a 12-second delay. However, if the player destroys multiple Sno-Bees and leaves only one alive, it will become a Blob immediately. The game includes a total of 16 rounds. After every second round, one of six intermission animations is displayed. It then repeats indefinitely. One life is lost whenever Pengo touches an un-stunned Sno-Bee or Blob. When all lives are lost, the game ends.
ESRB Rating: E - Everyone
Genre(s): Action