Let’s Compare ( Mappy )

Video Locations:

Arcade 0:34
MSX 1:52
Fijitsu FM7 3:11
Sharp X1 4:29
NEC PC8801 5:47
Sharp MZ-2500 7:06
Gameboy Color 8:25
Gameboy Advance 9:43
Game Gear 11:02
Famicom 12:25
Playstation 13:43
Sharp X68000 15:06

Description Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mappy

Mappy (マッピー Mappī?) is a 1983 arcade game by Midway Games (until Namco Classic Collection vol.1 is released, it was made by Namco). In the United States, it was manufactured and distributed by Bally/Midway. Mappy is a side-scrolling platformer that features cartoon-like characters, 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.

Gameplay

The player guides Mappy the police mouse through the mansion of the cats called Mewkies (Meowky in the U.S. version) 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 in which the stolen items are stashed. The items are:

Radio (100 points)
Television (200 points)
Computer (300 points)
Mona Lisa (400 points)
Safe (500 points)

The items come in pairs; should Mappy get paired items one after another, the point values of the second matching item gets a multiplier. The more the player retrieves matching items without dying, the bigger the multiplier gets. Therefore, ideally a player will start with the lowest value item (100 + 100 × 2) and proceed to the highest value items (500 + 500 × 6) in order to get the highest value items with the biggest multiplier, for a total of 8500pts. The second item of a pair will blink if retrieving it will yield a multiplier.

Mappy and the cats move between the floors by bouncing on trampolines at various places in the house. Both Mappy and the cats can only land on a floor on the way up, but not on the way down. When they pass in the air, Mappy is unharmed by the cats, but should Mappy run into a cat anywhere else, he will lose a life.

The trampolines will break if Mappy bounces on them four times in a row. The trampolines change color depending on how many times Mappy has used them without a rest: green (zero bounces), blue (one bounce), yellow (two bounces), red (three bounces). A red trampoline will break if Mappy attempts it again. If a trampoline breaks and there is another trampoline below, Mappy will live. If there is either nothing or a floor under the broken trampoline, Mappy will lose a life. To reset a trampoline, Mappy must touch a floor. Bouncing on a trampoline is worth 10pts.

In addition to Meowkies, the boss cat Nyamco also roams around. The name “Nyamco”, besides being a play on “Namco”, comes from nyanko, the Japanese equivalent of “kitty cat”. Nyamco was renamed “Goro” in the U.S. release. He is faster, but less aggressive than the Mewkies. Throughout the levels, Nyamco hides behind the different objects to recover. Should Mappy recover an item which Nyamco is hiding behind, the player gets a bonus of 1000 points for having caught Nyamco in the act. He only hides behind an object for three seconds, though. Nyamco is always a single cat in each level, but the Meowkies appear three to a group for the first set of levels before the first bonus stage, four to a group for the next set of levels in between bonus levels, five to a group for the next set of levels, and so on.

Many of the hallways have doors which Mappy can slam open or shut to temporarily knock out the Mewkies or Nyamco. Some of these are special “microwave doors” which release a wave which sweeps away any cat in its path off the edge of the screen and out of the house. The first two Mewkies are each worth 200 points, and each additional Mewky beyond the second is worth 400 points; Nyamco counts as a Mewky plus a multiplier of two. Any cat that is swept away reappears after a short while, jumping from the top center opening in the roof.

A level is completed when all the loot is retrieved. If Mappy tarries too long, a “Hurry” sign appears after which the music and the cats speed up, and more Mewkies are added (two will appear ready to drop as the Mewkies normally do immediately following the hurry message, and more Mewkies can arrive later on). If the player waits too long after this, the “Gosenzo” coin (a blue disk shape with Nyamco’s face on it) will drop onto the top-middle platform and chase Mappy in a manner similar to the Mewkies, but more effectively. The “Gosenzo” coin can harm Mappy even if he is in the air.