Centipede is a classic arcade video game that was released in 1981 by Atari, designed by Ed Logg and Dona Bailey. It is often regarded as one of the pioneering examples of the shoot ’em up genre. In Centipede, players control a small, gnome-like character, called the Bug Blaster, tasked with defending a garden of mushrooms from waves of descending insects, including the iconic segmented centipede.