Mappy

Mappy, like Xevious, is an early Namco arcade game that achieved great success in the land of the rising sun, and very little success in the states. Behind it's cute characters and presentation is a surprisingly strategic arcade action game that requires a lot of planning, and can become quite frantic.

Since Mappy wasn't extraordinarily popular in the U.S., there isn't a lot of history to report. The name Mappy is likely derived from mappo, a Japanese slang term (slightly insulting) for a policeman. The large red cat was known as Nyamco in Japan, which besides being a play on Namco, comes from nyanko, the Japanese equivalent of "kitty cat". Nyamco was renamed Goro in the U.S. release.

Mappy (again, like Xevious) was ported to a large number of home computers and consoles in Japan, and (unlike Xevious) saw no American conversions. It has shown up more recently in the states thanks to the Namco Museum 50th Anniversary compilations and the Jakks Pacific Namco TV Games plug & play systems.

Story
You are Mappy, the brave mouse policeman. Mappy's mission is to retrieve all of the stolen treasure from the Meowky cat gang. They've stashed all of the loot in their leader's mansion which contains several floors, and numerous trampolines that the Meowkies like to use to travel between stories. Mappy's job is only to gather the goods, not to make any arrests, so don't let him get near any cats or it's lights out for Mappy.

Gameplay summary

 * You control Mappy through the mansion with the joystick.
 * You must collect every stolen item to advance to the next stage. Collect a pair of items back to back for bonus points.
 * You must avoid contact with Nyamco and the Meowky cat gang while standing on a floor.
 * Use trampolines to bounce from one floor to another. Mappy is (mostly) safe from harm while in the air.
 * Press the door button to open and close doors. Use this to block or shove enemy cats.
 * Open a flashing door to emit a wave that drives cats off the screen for bonus points.
 * In bonus rounds, gather all of the balloons as quickly as possible before the music stops.