Electrician/Gameplay

• 

  Famicom Disk System title screen.

• 

  Atari 8-bit title screen.

Controls

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.

Pests

Pests are creatures that you will encounter inside buildings. Snakes, Mice, and Spiders have the ability to undermine the work you are doing by destroying the connections that you make to the ceilings. They are only prevented from ruining the wiring when every connecting on a certain story is complete and the wire is live.

Snakes

Snakes are the least harmful of all the pests. They cannot kill you under any circumstance. All you can do to them however, is stomp on them, and this only causes them to be temporarily stunned. They quickly get back up and continue to crawl along in the direction that they were traveling. They appear in buildings 1 and 4.

Mice

Mice may be the easiest pest to deal with. They can kill you if two squeeze you in from both sides, but this is rare and easily avoided. One thing you can do against mice is to push them from behind. This startles them and causes them to race forward and out of your way. If they hit a live wire as a result, they will fry. If they hit one of your newly laid connections however, they will simply eat through it. They appear in buildings 2, 5, and 6.

Spiders

Spiders are the deadliest pest of all. One touch from a Spider is lethal and will kill you instantly. As a result, there is no recourse against them other than to avoid them entirely. In the Famicom version, they also lay invisible spider web traps! If you happen to cross a section where the web was laid, you will become stuck, and you must shake yourself lose to continue moving. They appear in buildings 3, 7, and 8.

Bats

Bats are not a danger to any of the wiring you lay, but they are a major nuisance. Bats have no problem picking you up if they collide with you, and dropping you off wherever they feel like it. Sometimes you might get lucky and get dropped off on solid ground. Other times, you will get dropped off down the chutes on either side of each floor and plummet to your death.

In the Atari version, each bat stays on a particular floor. At first their motion is very simple, but as you go to more buildings, their motion becomes more and more elaborate and hard to avoid. They can even pick you up and travel with you if they touch you on one of the side ladders.

In the Famicom version, they first appear in building 4. There is only one or two bats for the entire building and they roam throughout different levels. They cannot pick you up on the ladders in this version.

Sparks

Sparks are introduced later in the game (building 3 in the Atari version, and building 5 in the Famicom version). Sparks can only travel along live wires, and one touch from a spark means instant death to the electrician. If a spark runs to the end of an uncompleted wire, it will simply disappear. The Electrician can safely duck a spark every time, as long as he is not standing in front of a wire that the spark might travel down to continue moving.