Electrician

Electrician is an action game designed and developed by David Bunch, and published by Synapse Software for the Atari 400, 800, and XL line of home computers. It was sold on a disk along with another Synapse title, New York City - The Big Apple. Although it was never ported to any other home computer, Japanese company Kemco licensed the rights to port and publish the game in Japan on the Famicom Disk System. A number of changes were made to the game to accommodate the hardware capabilities, but it remained roughly the same as the original.

You play the role of an Electrician whose job it is to rewire all of the electricity in eight buildings. Each building is a vertically scrolling stage with a number of pests making their way throughout the crawl space where you must attempt to complete all of the wiring. Until a floor is completely wired, the pests can chew through the lower connections which feed into the ceiling, which you must then repair. In later levels, bats and electrical surges join the scene to make life even more difficult.

Once a building is entirely wired, the electrician must navigate from one building to the next by way of a horizontally scrolling sewer stage. The sewer consists of multiple levels, including a water filled basement level with a canoe, and each level contains ladders and brick walls. Although you are equipped with a flashlight, you must get close to the wall to see that your path is blocked, and you must find an alternate route to the next building. Alligators lumber through each of the levels.

Atari computers

 * Joystick: Use the joystick to direct the electrician. Press left or right to make the electrician run in either direction.  Press up or down when standing near a ladder to climb up or down.  Press down to squat.  Press up to reach high.  Press up and to the right or to the left to jump diagonally in either direction.
 * Button: Press the action button to actively lay down wire in a building while you run. Press up to connect wires to the plugs in the floors above you, and press down to connect wires to the plugs in the ceilings below you.
 * Start: Press the Start key to begin a new game.

Famicom Disk System

 * : Use the direction pad to control the electrician. Press left or right to make the electrician run in either direction.  Press up or down when standing near a ladder to climb up or down.  Press down to squat.  Press up to reach high.
 * : Press the A button to actively lay down wire in a building while you run. Press up to connect wires to the plugs in the floors above you, and press down to connect wires to the plugs in the ceilings below you.  Also use A to turn your flashlight on or off in the sewers.
 * : Press the B button to jump. Press it alone to jump straight up, or press it while holding the direction pad left or right to jump in either direction.
 * : Press the start button to begin a new game, or to pause and unpause the action mid-game.

The Electrician
You control the electrician throughout the game. It is the Electricians job to lay down all the wire in eight different building in order to get them completely connected with electricity. In order to do this, he must enter each building, lay wire across every story, and connect all of the lines to each of the plugs in the floors and ceilings of each story. He can climb along either side of each building in order to get from one floor to another and he can jump off the ladders and onto the floors, or over gaps between certain apartments. Along the way, he must watch out for dangerous threats such as spiders, sparks, or getting squeezed by two mice. He must also avoid falling too far or he will not be able to survive the landing (two floors on the Atari version, only one floor on the Famicom version.) If he runs into a bat while it is flying across a story, it will pick him up and drop him off where ever it feels like it, possibly to his doom. Once a building it connected, he must pick up the key at the bottom of the building (Atari version), or exit the door at the bottom (Famicom version) and proceed to the next building. In order to get there, he must traverse a maze-like sewer system. Dark brick walls can prevent his passage through certain levels of the sewer system, which can only be seen with a flashlight. Alligators (Atari) or other creatures (Famicom) roam the levels of the sewer and must be avoided at all costs. Once the Electrician has made it to the next building, he must enter inside and begin the task of wiring all over again.