Playable Vectrex game
About Rip-Off
Protect fuel canisters from raiders in Bill Hawkins’s Vectrex port of Tim Skelly’s cooperative vector arcade game Rip-Off.
- Collection
- Games
- Classification
- Official library
- Catalog year
- 1982
- Programmed by
- William “Bill” Hawkins
- Designed by
- Tim Skelly (arcade original)
- Publisher
- GCE / Milton Bradley
- Genre
- Multidirectional shooter, Arcade conversion
- Players
- 1–2 players; cooperative
- Research confidence
- verified
- ROM editions
- 1
- Browser controls
- Keyboard, joystick, or gamepad
Development and history
Rip-Off began as a 1980 Cinematronics arcade game designed by Tim Skelly and became notable for cooperative two-player play. The Vectrex version was programmed by Bill Hawkins and released in 1982.
Hawkins later described Rip-Off as his first Vectrex project, developed on an early S-100/CP/M system using 8-inch floppy disks. The conversion is therefore closely linked to the formative months of Vectrex software development.
This page uses one stable canonical URL for the title and loads its embedded ROM directly into the emulator after the Vectrex BIOS is ready.
Gameplay and background
Defend the central fuel canisters against waves of enemy craft. Solo play demands careful positioning, while two controllers allow simultaneous cooperation—one of the strongest reasons to experience Rip-Off with another player.
How to play in Vectrexia
- Move with the Arrow keys or WASD. Compatible controllers can use the left analog stick or D-pad.
- Vectrex buttons 1–4 map to Z, X, C, and V, and to the standard face buttons on most gamepads.
- Press a controller button after connecting it so the browser can expose the gamepad to the page.
Audio may begin after the first click, key press, or controller input because browsers can restrict autoplay.
Research sources
Available editions
Alternate dumps and revisions share this canonical page to avoid duplicate search pages. Choose a specific edition from the in-app Library.