Alley Cat

Alley Cat is a Video game conceived by the range designer Bill Williams of the studios SynSoft and marketed in 1983 on Atari 800 and in 1984 on PC compatible. The player controls an ordinary cat of which the goal is to be introduced among people to commit crimes there.

Description

The version Atari 800 proposes graphics " 16 couleurs" and is available to the format Disquette and cassette. Synapse Software left the play on these two formats to the United States, just like Ariolasoft which ensured the distribution of it on the German territory. In the United Kingdom, US Gold sold the program on its label of plays at low prices Americana (in cassette only) in 1986. In this country, the title should earlier have left directly on the SynSoft label (reserved with the software Synapse Software imported of the United States) one year but this version forever considering the day.

The version PC, published by IBM, was designed to turn on PC DOS or MS-DOS, but also functions on their successors, like Windows. The resolution of the play is 320x200. It simultaneously posts four colors with the screen among: Black, White, Cyan, Magenta, Red, Green, Yellow and Blue. The music and the sound effects use PC announcer (sounds system with only one way). The play is sometimes regarded by the nostalgic ones as one of largest of the time CGA. He proposes many possibilities in term of Gameplay compared to the place memory which he occupies: a file COM of 56,448 Byte S.

If he is regarded as a set of platforms, it is because at the time the kind did not have well established codes. Today, one could just as easily classify it in the " kinds; arcade" or " minis-jeux".

Gameplay

General information

The play is for profile. It is completely in English. It can be played as well keyboard as with the joystick.

Phases of play

The street

The first screen which the cat cross-piece is an alley where find dustbins. They are posed in front of a palisade. Above this one, one sees nine windows divided into square in front of which pass from the mobile clothes lines laterally. The goal of the play is here to jump in one of the windows, by exceeding certain difficulties (wandering cats, dogs, projectiles…). Once the achieved objectives, the player passes then to the second screen.

Mini-plays

In the parts that the player visits, there is a brush. It erases the traces of your steps and once this finished task, it will try to return the cat by the window from where it comes. There are five parts which correspond to five mini-plays:

the bird out of cage: A cage is posed in the center of the part on a table. The cat must make it fall and catch the bird which escapes from it while jumping on the pieces of furniture (lamp, chairs, table, curtain, table) in place.
the aquarium: The primary goal of this play is to jump in an aquarium posed on a table. Once inside, the player must catch all fish without being made electrocute by ondelettes. A caught fish causes the appearance of an additional ondelette.
the cheese: In this part throne an enormous piece of Gruyere in the holes of which four mice appear by chance. The cat must catch them.
deadened dogs: In this part, dogs sleep in front of their mess tins, the goal of the cat is to drink the contents of the mess tins without awaking them.
the library: A large library sits in the part. The cat must recover three plants out of pot above this one by avoiding the spider which assembles the guard. For that, the player can make jump his cat on the shelves.

Return in the street

In the event of victory the player turns over then in the street and must enter an apartment once again.

The final test

In this screen, the player must make mount seven platforms made up of aligned hearts. The hearts have two states: full or broken. The cat cannot walk on a broken heart. Of Cupid surround the window of play and draw from the arrows in diagonal. They modify the state of the hearts while passing above. There is a cat by platform, except on that of bottom or the player starts. It will appear of it if the player takes too much time. To touch a cat or an arrow makes fall from one platform to the vertical. To fall from the platform of bottom makes return to the first screen. The cat, arrived on the last platform, must embrace that present on this one to gain the level.

System of points

A system of high-score is present in the play. It is possible only three to gain points:

To eat a mouse in " The rue"
To finish a mini-play quickly
Finishing the screen " Cupidon" to multiply its points

Ways of life

One begins the play with three lives. One gains a life by last level. The cat has few possibilities of losing a life:

To be attacked by a dog
To be éloctructé in " The aquarium"
To be piqué by the spider in the " The bibliothèque"
To be struck by a projectile

The occasions are nevertheless frequent.

System of levels

The play comprises four degrees of difficulty (Kitten, House Cat, Tomcat, Alley Cat). Each level takes again the same diagram explained above. Only the difficulty is increased with for example:

Of the more frequent appearances of dog
a more delicate placement of the dustbins to apprehend
More appearance of dogs
Less suspended clothing to which to cling
More arrows in the final test with the cats which approach you to make you fall
In the test from cheese, the mice appear less longer with the holes
etc…

Protective system

Concerning the version for PC, the play was marketed in the form of a diskette 5 ' 1/4 simple face doubles density of a capacity of 180 KB. Rather rare fact on PC, the diskette was known as Autoboot, i.e. that it was initially necessary to introduce the diskette into the reader then to put the PC under tension, the play took care then automatically without unspecified operating system of diskettes being as a preliminary charged. The last track of this diskette had a particular format, making impossible its copy by order DISKCOPY of DOS. But the pirates quickly déprotégé the play to leave it a file .COM 56,448 bytes which made the round the world tour by interposed diskettes. When one examines the version Atari 800 more closely, one finds several messages relating to the pirates of software. Moreover, much of plays from Synapse Software had traps preventing their copy. For example, if the protection of the play is withdrawn, this one will stop with the screen of loading and will format the diskette in background!

Necessary configuration on PC

The necessary basic configuration is either a PC DOS 1.0 (or more recent), or a MS-DOS 1.25 (or more recent) or Windows.

Random links: