Mappy

Mappy is a 1983 arcade game by Namco. In the United States, it was distributed by Bally/Midway. Mappy is a side-scrolling platform game that features cartoon-like animals, primarily cats and mice. The game's main character itself is a mouse. Mappy runs on Namco Super Pac-Man hardware, modified to support horizontal scrolling. The name 'Mappy' is likely derived from mappo, a Japanese slang term (slightly insulting) for a policeman.

The player guides Mappy the police mouse through the mansion of the cats called Meowkies (Mewkies in Japan) to retrieve stolen goods. The player uses a left-right joystick to move Mappy and a single button to operate doors. The mansion has six floors of hallways (four or five in some other versions) in which the stolen items are stashed. Mappy and the cats move between floors by bouncing on trampolines at various places in the house.

Both Mappy and the cats can land on a floor on the way up, but not on the way down. When Mappy passes cats in the air, he is unharmed, but if he runs into a cat anywhere else, he will lose a life. The trampolines break when Mappy bounces on them four times in a row, and the trampolines change color depending on how many times Mappy has used them without a rest. In addition to the Meowkies, the boss cat Goro (Nyamco in Japanese) also roams around. He is faster but less aggressive than the Meowkies. Throughout the levels, Goro hides behind the different recoverable items. If Mappy recovers an item which Goro is hiding behind, the player receives 1000 points in addition to the score for the item. Items come in pairs; retrieving the second item in a pair immediately after the first multiplies the point value of the second item (x2, up to x6).

Opening and closing doors is an important feature of the game. Doors only open towards their doorknobs. Hitting a cat with a door will score 50 points and stun the cat (knocking a Meowkie down or Goro backwards). Meowkies and Goro can open doors but will get stunned unless the door opens away from them (doorknobs away), and they can walk through opened doors. They cannot open blue doors. Blue doors, when opened, blast a slow moving 'microwave' in the direction of the doorknob that will trap any cats it touches and remove them from the board when the wave reaches the edge of the screen. The more cats caught, the more points gained. If Goro is trapped by a wave, the score is doubled. Cats removed in this way return shortly from above.

A round is completed when all the loot is retrieved. If the player takes longer than usual to clear a round, a 'Hurry' message appears after which the music speeds up and the cats move quickly and aggressively, and more Meowkies are added (two will appear ready to drop as the Meowkies normally do immediately following the 'Hurry' message, and more Meowkies can arrive later on). If the player takes much longer after this, a green disc with Goro's face on it named the 'Gosenzo Coin' will drop onto the top-middle platform and chase Mappy more effectively than the Meowkies as it can kill him while jumping. The Gosenzo can open doors and cannot be stopped by microwave doors or any objects.

The third round and every fourth round after is a bonus round. Mappy, unbothered by the cats, must bounce across a series of trampolines, popping fifteen different suspended red balloons (200 pts), with a 'Goro' (2000 points) along the way. A bonus (5000 pts) is awarded if all the balloons are popped before the music ends. After every bonus round, a new feature is added to the gameplay, such as bells that freeze cats. The 'Hurry' message will also appear sooner.

As there are 256 rounds, like in Pac-Man and other 8-bit arcade games, the last round's play is normal, but harder than usual. When the player finishes the round, which is also known as 'Round 0,' the first round appears again.