Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

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Description

You play Pitfall Harry searching for the Raj diamond, his niece Rhonda, her cat Quickclaw and a variety of treasures somewhere in the Andes. Poisonous frogs, eels, scorpions, bats, and other hazards get in the way.

Pitfall II is the sequel to Pitfall!, the original platform game. Gameplay has remained pretty much the same, with each screen presenting a side view of obstacles to get past, and potentially treasures to collect. The landscape is more maze-like, with a variety of paths and dead ends to search. Along the way, there are checkpoints the player will encounter in the form of red crosses. When the player dies, Pitfall Harry will be sent back to the most recently crossed checkpoint. The score is reduced based on the distance traveled to get to the cross.

As he explores Harry can collect gold bars which give him a 5000 points award. His total score acts as an energy reserve. If the score is reduced to zero then the game ends and the player must restart from the beginning.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "ピットフォールII" -- Japanese spelling
• "David Crane's Pitfall II: Lost Caverns" -- Alternate title

Part of the Following Groups

• Game with creator's name
• Gaming Service: Game Room
• Pitfall series
• Protagonist: Treasure hunter

User Reviews

The closest the 2600 ever came to an epic	Atari 2600	TheoryOfChaos (55)
Do more things besides collecting gold	Atari 2600	Katakis | カタキス (43211)

Critic Reviews

TeleMatch	Atari 2600	May, 1984	1 out of 6	100
The Video Game Critic	Atari 5200	Nov 04, 2001	A	100
The Atari Times	Atari 2600	Jun 09, 2001	95 out of 100	95
The Video Game Critic	Atari 2600	Aug 05, 2011	A-	91
Computer and Video Games (CVG)	Commodore 64	Jan, 1985	34 out of 40	85
Oldies Rising	Atari 2600	Dec 25, 2013	17 out of 20	85
Techtite	Atari 2600	1999		80
Zzap!	Commodore 64	Jun, 1987	60 out of 100	60
ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	Commodore 64	Sep, 1989	6.75 out of 12	56
Defunct Games	ColecoVision	Dec 22, 2017	C	50

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Maybe this game should be split... (Arcade, SG-1000?)	2	Terok Nor (34250) Aug 07, 2015

Trivia

High score reward

If the player sent proof of a score of 99,000 points or more for the Atari 2600 version of the game, they would be rewarded with a Cliff Hangers patch. Here is a picture of that patch at AtariAge.

Method of Porting Apple II version

In his Game Developer Research Institute interview, Rex Bradford, the developer who ported Pitfall II to the Apple II platform from the Atari 2600, mentions that they ignored the source code they were provided with and re-wrote the game from scratch after studying the game play of the original.

Awards

• Retro Gamer Magazine
  • (Issue 46) - #1 'Top 25 Atari 2600'
• Zzap!
  • May 1985 (Issue 1) - #56 'It's the Zzap! 64 Top 64!'

Related Web Sites

• Cave map (A map of the entire cavern.)
• Game Map (A screenshot map of the game)