Galaga on NES: Controls, Scoring, and Boss Tractor Beam Mechanics from the Official Manual

Basic Controls and Player Setup

The manual's Basic Controls list assigns movement to left and right, letting you slide the ship along the bottom of the screen. Firing is mapped to both A and B, so either button launches shots. Pause and Confirm are bound to START, and the manual notes that this function is for player 1 only. SELECT handles Menu navigation, distinct from the other inputs. These five assignments sit together under the heading "1 Controls / Basic Controls" on manual page 2, with no alternate configurations described.

Before play begins, the manual's "2 Getting Started" section describes a two-step setup: use SELECT to choose the number of players, then press START to begin. This is where SELECT and START do their documented work in sequence, first selecting, then confirming. The Basic Controls list also calls START "Pause/Confirm (player 1 only)," so the same button that starts the session is reserved for player 1 during play. SELECT alone handles menu navigation, and no other selection method is documented.

Your Mission and Objectives

From the start of each stage, the player's ship fires missiles at the Galagan aliens while moving left and right to avoid their attacks. The manual states: "Shoot down the Galagan aliens with your missiles while moving left and right to avoid their attacks." This sets the rhythm of every run: offense toward the formation above and lateral dodging against incoming fire. Defeating all enemies is the way to clear a stage, so a stage ends when none of the Galagan aliens remain to shoot down.

Points serve two documented ends. Accumulating enough of them earns an extra life, and the manual notes that shooting down attacking enemies or a boss in formation yields extra points. It also says there are challenging stages where extra points can be earned. So the point total is not decorative: it feeds a threshold tied to an extra life, while targets chosen during play, attacking enemies or a formation boss, and the appearance of challenging stages all raise the score further.

Scoring, Extra Lives, and Stage Progression

Points accumulate from shooting down Galagan aliens with your missiles while you move left and right to avoid their attacks. Once you earn enough points, you receive an extra life. The same action—shooting down attacking enemies or a boss in formation—also earns extra points, so scoring and survival are linked to the same offensive behavior. The manual ties the extra-life threshold directly to this point total, making the score counter the single measure for both progress and additional lives.

To clear a stage, you must defeat all the enemies. Beyond the standard stages, the manual notes that challenging stages appear, and there you can earn extra points. That bonus is not automatic; shooting down attacking enemies or a boss in formation produces the extra points. The rules therefore separate two win conditions: wiping out every enemy ends the stage, while hitting specific targets during any stage—including the challenging ones—adds points that feed back into the extra-life system.

Boss Tractor Beam and Dual Fighters

In Galaga, the enemy boss will release a tractor beam. If your fighter gets caught in it, that fighter is captured. From that point, the captured fighter sits with the boss that took it. To get it back, you must shoot down that specific boss. When you do, you recover your fighter and obtain dual fighters, so you now control two ships at once. This recovery sequence is the documented way to gain dual fighters.

The boss that captured your fighter must be hit twice in order to be shot down. A single hit is not enough; the manual states the boss must be hit twice to be shot down. Only after shooting down that boss do you recover your fighter and obtain dual fighters. Because of the two-hit requirement, you need to land two shots on the same boss before it is destroyed, so the capture-recovery chain depends on delivering that second hit.

Losing Lives and Game Over

In Galaga, the manual on page 7 lists exactly three ways to lose a life: being captured by a boss, being shot by an enemy, or crashing into an enemy. Any one of these events removes a life from your remaining stock. The rules apply the same hazard set whether you are flying a single fighter or a dual fighter, so a boss tractor beam or an enemy projectile remains dangerous in either configuration. The manual does not describe a separate shield, invincibility window, or alternate condition that would spare the player from these outcomes.

Game over is tied to the life count at the moment of the loss. The manual states the game ends if you lose a life or are captured by a boss when you have no lives left. That phrasing places the end of the run at the point when a final life is expended by any of the listed causes, or when a boss capture occurs with no lives remaining. Separately, being hit while flying a dual fighter costs the extra ship rather than ending the run: you return to being just a plain fighter, continuing with a single fighter.

Dual Fighter Survival and Reversion

The dual fighter is created through the boss tractor beam: if your fighter is caught in it, the fighter is captured, and shooting down that boss recovers the fighter and obtains dual fighters. The boss carrying your captured fighter must be hit twice before it is shot down, so the recovery takes two successful shots rather than one. Once you have dual fighters, the game gives you two craft; the manual only describes obtaining them through this rescue, not any other route.

If you are hit as a dual fighter, you will return to being just a plain fighter. Losing a life also occurs if you are captured by a boss, shot by an enemy, or crash into one; losing a life or being captured by a boss when you have no lives left ends the game. So a dual-fighter hit costs the second craft but not a life, unless the hit coincides with the listed life-loss conditions.

First published Oct 15, 2026.