Collecting a heart, note, or letter on the...
1st floor : 50 points(1)
2nd floor : 100 points(1)
3rd floor : 300 points(1)
4th floor : 500 points(1)
Punching the punch-bag : 30 points
Punching a bottle : 100 points
Punching a skull : 100 points
Punching Bernard : 1000 points
Using Spinach power to knock Brutus into the water : 3000 points
Dropping the bucket on Brutus' head when he's on the...
1st floor : 4000 points
2nd floor : 2000 points
3rd floor : 1000 points
Hitting Swee'Pea's platform from below : 500 points(1)

NOTE : The Punch button is not required to punch Brutus or Bernard when Popeye has Spinach power.

(1) denotes values that are doubled if Popeye has Spinach power.

* A Display Glitch : On the musical note level, you can stand at the point on the edge where you 'wraparound' and if you punch a bottle in the right spot, it'll erase part of the 'THRU' sign. This can be done on both sides.

* LEVEL ONE :

1) On the first level, Olive Oyl stands at the top of the screen and throws 24 hearts (one at a time) down to the bottom, hoping that Popeye will catch them all. If a heart reaches the bottom of the screen, you will have about 10 seconds to pick it up before it breaks, costing you one life. Try to catch the hearts as high as possible, since they decrease in value as they get closer to the bottom.

2) When Brutus harasses you, cross the edge of the screen from left to right and wait for him to stop directly underneath the bucket. Hit the punching bag at this point and the bucket will fall onto his head, rendering him helpless for a while. This will score you points based on which floor Brutus is on when you hit him (see Scoring above) and give you some time to catch a few more hearts.

3) Like in the cartoons, Popeye becomes stronger after eating Spinach. A can of Spinach moves between the second and third floors of the screen and you can have Popeye eat it by punching the can. Afterwards, Popeye will turn red and become stronger than Brutus for about 10 seconds (shorter in later levels). If you can punch Brutus at this time, he falls into the sea, temporarily knocking him out, and you will be awarded 3000 points.

4) Brutus will eventually recover so make good use of this time by catching as many falling hearts as possible. They don't move, and they are worth twice as much when Popeye is under the influence of Spinach, so catching some of the higher hearts can really help your score. And since extra lives are only awarded at a very high score (40000 points on most machines; 20000 points by default on Revision F machines), you should be as greedy as possible.

5) Spinach can only be used once per level, and it is never restored after you lose a life (except in Revision F, see Updates above). Do not use it too soon. Collect about two thirds of the total number of hearts, and have as many hearts fill the air as possible before getting the Spinach.

6) If you want to risk getting 4000 points instead of 2000, do not use the punching bag immediately. Wait until you have punched Brutus (best done after eating Spinach) and position Popeye to the punching bag. After Brutus comes out of the sea, he will move underneath the bucket on the bottom floor. With some practice and timing you should be able to drop the bucket onto his head for 4000 points. NOTE : Touching Brutus while the bucket is on his head is not fatal. But be careful, because after the bucket comes off he can easily knock out Popeye.

7) To make up for his lumbering slowness, Brutus is capable of throwing beer bottles at Popeye. You should try to force him to throw bottles as often as possible (four at a time) instead of avoiding them, so you can score extra points.

8) The Sea Hag also throws bottles, except she only throws one at a time. The Sea Hag materializes on the edge of the screen for a moment, chucks a bottle, and disappears. She can also be on both sides of the screen at once. So if you are caught between two Sea Hags or between Brutus and the Sea Hag, you will have to be quick on the joystick and Punch button to survive.

* LEVEL TWO : The second level is much like the first, except Olive Oyl is dropping musical notes now (16 of them, one at a time). The major difference is the layout, with Wimpy on the plank in the lower left corner. If Popeye jumps off the second floor, he will be catapulted up to the third floor. With some careful timing, you can even make Popeye leap all the way up to the fourth floor, where Swee'Pea is waiting on a balloon platform. Touching the bottom of Swee'Pea's platform will score 500 points (1000 points while under the influence of Spinach).

* LEVEL THREE :

1) The setting for the third level is a ship, with a sliding platform on the top floor. At the beginning of the board you should be able to slide Popeye across the platform several times, catching the letters H-E-L-P that Olive Oyl is dropping directly above.

2) Every time Popeye catches a letter, one step is added to a ladder which goes up to Olive Oyl. When the ladder is finished, Olive Oyl is rescued. This is the most difficult level because a total of 24 letters are needed to complete the ladder and save Olive Oyl. Bernard, the vulture, will constantly appear from the left side of the screen. While sliding back and forth across the platform, you should try to punch Bernard as many times as possible, to score 1000 points per punch.

3) After Popeye has rescued Olive Oyl on the third level, there will be an intermission that will have Popeye's face while "I'm Popeye The Sailor Man" plays followed by Popeye blowing his pipe and going "Toot! Toot!". Afterwards, the game begins again with increased difficulty.

On ALL levels, Brutus can reach from underneath or bend down from higher floors to lower ones. Be careful that you are not underneath him.

When the game restarts from the first level with increased difficulty, the Sea Hag will start throwing down deadly bouncing skulls from the edges of the screen that must be punched when they are bouncing upward. You must also make sure that there are no skulls directly above Popeye, since they drop down a floor or two and hit him on the head.

Continue to avoid Brutus, Bernard, the beer bottles, and the skulls, and keep catching whatever Olive Oyl throws down.

0.33b1 [?]
0.19 [Marc Lafontaine]

Artwork available

SERVICE MODE:
- To enter service mode, reset keeping the service button pressed.

Bugs:
- [possible] The colors of the platforms, steps, and ladder of the first board seem off. reesal (ID 04284)
- Incorrect sprite rendering in Popeye. Oliver_A (ID 03725)
- Discrete sound filter for AY-3-8910 voice A not emulated. Oliver_A (ID 03726)

WIP:
- 21st October 2010: 3D ARCADE - New Nintendo 3D cabinet model for Popeye from Jibmums.
- 0.129: Kevin Eshbach corrected the rom names for Popeye, added save state support, added the DIP locations to the encrypted Popeye and fixed the coin settings according to the manual (unencrypted Popeye not changed).
- 0.123u2: Changed palettesize to 304 colors.
- 8th October 2006: Mr. Do - Ad_Enuff finished vectorizing his work of love: Popeye bezel.
- 0.91: Nicola Salmoria fixed Popeye crash and the Water colour by correctly masking the tile attribute.
- 0.60: Changed VSync to 60Hz.
- 22nd October 2001: William Kucharski sent in cocktail mode fixes for 1943 and Popeye.
- 0.53: Decrypted the original Popeye [Nicola Salmoria]. Changed description to 'Popeye (revision D)' and clones '(set 2)' to '(revision D not protected)' and '(rev. F)' to '(revision F)'. Renamed (popeye2) to (popeyeu). Added new cpu1 rom ($6000) to clone '(revision F)'. Changed palettesize from 304 to 288 colors. Added dipswitches 'Copyright' and 'Unknown'. Removed 3rd coin slot.
- 0.37b6: Added clone Popeye (rev. F).
- 25th June 1999: Mike Coates modified Popeye to be properly rotated.
- 0.35b2: Nicola Salmoria added clone Popeye (set 2), not working due to encryption. Changed parent description to 'Popeye (set 1)'. Replaced proms in (set 1) with (set 2).
- 0.34b1: Added color proms ($0, 20, 40, 140)
- 0.33b2: Nicola Salmoria adjusted the brightness of the background in Popeye, which should make it correct according to the schematics. Maybe now it's too dark?
- 0.33b1: Added Popeye (Nintendo). The original doesn't work because the ROMs are encrypted. The encryption is based on a custom ALU and seems to be dynamically evolving (like Jr. PacMan).
- 0.31: Known issues: You get about 7 bonus lives when you reach level 4.
- 0.30: Juan Carlos Lorente fixed high score saving in Popeye.
- 0.28: Since there are now many games which don't run at 60fps (e.g. Popeye and the vector games), F11 was confusing and lead people to think the emulation was slow, while it was running at the correct speed. F11 now displayes the percentage of the speed of the real machine. 100% is the correct speed, 200% is twice as fast, 50% is half as fast [Nicola Salmoria].
- 0.27: Popeye runs at the correct speed of 30 fps [Nicola Salmoria].
- 0.26: Mauro Minenna introduced a new option (-dir4) that simplify the use of the joysticks to be connected on the keyboard. This modify resolves the problem of diagonal direction in games such as PacMan, Popeye, and Kung Fu Master.
- 0.23: Some fix to Popeye sound pitch.
- 0.20: Thanks to Marc Lafontaine's invaluable help, Popeye is now fully playable and has 100% accurate colors. Supports high score saving, too. Still very slow. Added protection prom po_d1-e1.bin.
- 0.19: Thanks to Marc Lafontaine we have now support for Popeye (bootleg). It's not yet playable (when the game starts the machine resets) but it has music already. It's also very slow, since it uses a 512x480 screen. I'm looking for decryption scheme for original Popeye board using Lionel's idea [pain!].
- 9th March 1996: Dumped Popeye (revision D).

LEVELS: 3

Animation: Popeye The Sailor
Year: USA 1936
Studio: Max Fleischer
Cast: Popeye, Olive Oyl, Bluto, Wimpy

Movie: Popeye
Genre: Comedy, Musical
Year: USA 1980
Director: Robert Altman
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Cast: Robin Williams, Shelly Duvall, Paul L. Smith, Linda Hunt, Paul Dooley

Romset: 69 kb / 14 files / 39.2 zip