is an arcade game by

Namco was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Namco Taiwan in Kaohsiung, ...

, introduced in

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

and distributed in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

by Bally Midway. A side-scrolling platform game featuring a mouse protagonist and cat antagonists, it runs on

Namco Super Pac-Man Namco was a video game developer and publisher, originally from Japan. Bandai Namco Entertainment is the successor to Namco and continues manufacturing and distributing video games worldwide. For Namco games released following the 2006 merger w ...

hardware modified to support horizontal scrolling. The name "Mappy" is likely derived from , a slightly pejorative Japanese slang term for

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...

man. The game has been re-released in several Namco arcade compilations. It spawned a handful of sequels and a 2013 animated web series developed by cartoonists

Scott Kurtz Scott R. Kurtz (born March 15, 1971) is an American webcomic artist. Known for creating the daily online comic-strip ''PvP'', Kurtz is among the first professional webcomic creators. Career Kurtz was born to a Catholic household in Watsonville, ...

and

Kris Straub The kris, or ''keris'' in the Indonesian language, is an asymmetrical dagger with distinctive blade-patterning achieved through alternating laminations of iron and nickelous iron (''pamor''). Of Javanese origin, the kris is famous for its dist ...

Gameplay

The player guides Mappy the police mouse through the mansion of the

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

s called Meowkies (Mewkies in Japan) to retrieve stolen goods, such as the

Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a Half length portrait, half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described ...

or a TV. 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 touches a cat 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). Doors only open towards their doorknobs. Hitting a cat with a door scores 50 points and stuns the cat. 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 A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, ...

. 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.

Ports and sequels

* In 2003, two mobile games were released in Japan with the titles and . * In 2007, Mappy is a playable character in the PSP racing game '' Pac-Man World Rally''. * In September 2011, the mobile game was released. * In 2021, ''Mappy'' was released online by

Hamster Corporation is a Japanese video game publisher, with office located in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan. The game division of Toshiba-EMI Limited spun off Hamster Corporation in November 1999. On the Japanese PlayStation Store, more than 200 titles are distrib ...

under the '' Arcade Archives'' brand for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Mappy'' in its June 1, 1983 issue as the third most-successful table arcade unit of the month. It also topped the ''Game Machine'' chart for new

table arcade cabinet An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement ...

s in June 1983. In 2015, Hardcore Gamer included Mappy on its 200 Best Video Games of All Time.

Legacy

As part of Bandai Namco's ShiftyLook initiative, an animated ''Mappy'' web series, titled ''Mappy: The Beat'' was made. The series was written and directed by

and

, who also performed all of the character voices, and it was designed with

limited animation Limited animation is a process in the overall technique of traditional animation that reuses frames of character animation. Early history The use of budget-cutting and time-saving animation measures in animation dates back to the earliest commerci ...

in the style of Kurtz and Straub's ''Blamimations'' series. The story follows Mappy, now working a thankless job as a security guard for his former foe Goro's company Nyamco. He is accompanied by his friends and fellow Nyamco employees, the laid-back digging-obsessed

Dig Dug is a maze arcade game developed by Namco in 1981 and released in 1982, distributed in North America by Atari, Inc. The player controls Dig Dug to defeat all enemies per stage, by either inflating them to bursting or crushing them underneath rock ...

and the dim but good-natured

Sky Kid is a horizontally scrolling shooter arcade video game released by Namco in 1985. It runs on Namco Pac-Land hardware but with a video system like that used in ''Dragon Buster''. It is also the first game from Namco to allow two players to play si ...

, along with other Bandai Namco characters working at the office. ''Mappy: The Beat'' premiered on ShiftyLook's

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

channel on July 22, 2013, and ran for 13 episodes, each roughly eight minutes in length, with the final episode released on January 20, 2014. Kurtz also made a guest appearance as Mappy on the concurrent '' Bravoman'' animated series, with Bravoman in turn appearing in the final story arc of ''Mappy'', portrayed by guest voice Dax Gordine. Following the closure of ShiftyLook, their channel was removed from YouTube, making the episodes no longer officially available. A costume based on ''Mappy'' is in ''

LittleBigPlanet 3 ''LittleBigPlanet 3'' is a puzzle-platform game developed by Sumo Digital for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. It was released worldwide through November and December 2014, and it is the third entry in the main ''LittleBigPlanet'' series, ...

'' in the Namco Classics DLC. A medley of tracks from ''Mappy'' is in the Pac-Land stage in ''

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate ''Super Smash Bros. Ultimate'' is a 2018 crossover fighting video game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is the fifth installment in the '' Super Smash Bros.'' series, succeed ...

'' and in one of Pac-Man's taunts. A theme based on ''Mappy'', featuring the game's characters, is in '' Pac-Man 99'' as special DLC.

Notes

References

External links

*
Mappyland

''Mappy'' on strategywiki.org
* * {{Franchises owned by Bandai Namco Holdings 1983 video games 2013 web series debuts 2014 web series endings Arcade video games Bandai Namco Entertainment franchises Fictional police officers in video games FM-7 games Game Boy Advance games Game Gear games Midway video games MSX games Namco arcade games NEC PC-6001 games NEC PC-8001 games NEC PC-8801 games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo Switch games Platform games PlayStation 4 games Sharp MZ games Sharp X1 games Video games about mice and rats Video games about police officers Video games developed in Japan Virtual Console games Virtual Console games for Wii U IOS games Works by Kris Straub Hamster Corporation games Multiplayer and single-player video games