Game Manual

Hot Dog Wars: Ketchup vs Mustard is a 1-2 player action puzzler for the Atari 2600.

Ketchup and Mustard are locked in a battle for condiment supremacy! Whose side are you on?

Gameplay

The goal of the game is to clear the required number of lines--shown at the bottom of each players' side of the screen. Horizontal lines are cleared by completely filling them. Players lose the round if they come in contact with the falling blocks.

Play continues as long as at least one player survives long enough to clear all of their lines.

At the end of each round, the player with the most lines cleared (the lower lines-to-go-score) is awarded victory for that round. The number of rounds won is shown for each player between rounds.

If at least one player clears the required amount of lines, the difficulty level increases and a new round continues (when either player hits fire to continue on to the next round). If both players died before clearing the level, gameplay ends and the final win tally is shown for each player. Hitting fire to continue begins a new round of play from the starting difficulty level.

Controls

left/right to move your player.
Hold fire to charge your shot, release it to fire. Tap to fire a single shot.
Note that you can charge your shot to be between 1 and 4 blocks long.
Press fire to continue after the current round of play ends.

You can listen to the noise or look at the fill level of your player's bottle to tell how charged your shot is. If you charge for too long, the charge level starts growing up from 1 again and repeats charge levels 1-4.

Single vs 2-Player

There is only one mode of play, but it supports either number of players. Playing solo means the opposite player will just die and play continues for as long as you survive.

You can see how many levels you can beat by yourself. And as the only player you can plug your joystick into either port to pick between Ketchup (left/player-1) and Mustard (right/Player-2).

Difficulty Settings

The left difficulty switch can be used to control the starting difficulty level.

B - Start at level 1.
A - Start at level 4.

Levels get faster and the number of lines to clear get higher:

Level	Num Lines
1	30
2	40
3	50
4	60
5	70
6	80
7	90
8+	99

Levels 8 and up are the same level of difficulty.

Credits

Game and concept by Justin Cuga, 2025.

Written in Batari Basic.