Pitfall! is a platform game for the 2600 designed by David Crane and developed/published by Activision. The game was known for its advanced graphic techniques on the 2600. Crane had developed the technology to display a realistic running character on the 2600 two years prior to the games release and set out to design a game that could utilize this technique.
The goal is to find 32 treasures in the jungle. These include 8 golden bars, 8 silver bars, 8 diamond rings, and 8 bags of money.
The player controls Pitfall Harry through a jungle. Harry can move, jump, clinb ladders, and swing on vines, in order to navigate the jungle avoiding pits, quicksand, rolling logs, fire, and ponds of crocodiles. Enemies include rattlesnakes, scorpions. Tunnels under the jungle can be used to avoid certain obstacles and find additional treasures, moving through the tunnels allows the player to travel through the jungle faster and skip screens.
There are 256 screens in the jungle and the game has a 20 minute time limit in which all treasure must be recovered to complete the game.
Each treasure is worth a certain amount of points, and points are lost for non-fatal accidents such as falling in a pit or getting hit by logs. The highest possible score in the game is 114,000.
When Pitfall! was released, players who scored 20,000 points or more could send Activision a picture of their score to receive a Pitfall! Harry Explorer Club patch.
Pitfall! was also featured as a segment on CBS' Saturday Supercade cartoon lineup, under the name Pitfall Harry.
Pitfall is available as a hidden game in many titles including Pitfall: The Lost Expedition (PS2/Xbox/Gamecube), Jungle Book (SNES), Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (PS2/Xbox/PS3/Xbox 360). It's also available on the Activision Collection for PS1, Activison Anthology for PS2, Microsoft's Game Room Service and iOS platforms.