Alleycat (PC)
Synsoft

Alleycat is one of those titles that really flew under people's radar this year. But, with all the mini-game collections and retro-remakes out there, I thought it really deserved attention. Consider this the first Alleycat review on Destructoid.



Alleycat follows the recent trend in the indie scene of replicating old-school graphics and gameplay. Cat goes the extreme of using the old pink and cyan cga display. The graphics are therefore a little garish, but they suit the tomcat feel of the whole production, and they're about as authentic as you get, apart from a few colour tricks.

Alleycat is unique among recent retro-demakes as you play an animal throughout. This is a twist on the traditional boy-meets-girl theme. You're on the prowl, and all the staples of cat life are there, from fish to ingest, dogs to avoid, and female cats to--well, collect "hearts" from. You know what I'm sayin'.

I'm alluding to sexual intercourse.

Now, don't worry, "Bill" Williams doesn't appear to be a furry. There's no anamorphic human-animal hybrids doing the nasty, no puss in knocking boots together, no animal husbandry, if you get my many obvious meanings. There's just the Cat, and he's as cool as a relatively frazzled cucumber covered in fur. So like, a really old cucumber.

The basic screen is essentially a mini-game selector that borrows a little from Warioware and Mario Party, but in an arcade style. Basically, you have to get from the garbage cans, up to the fence and up to the windows as fast as possible without getting hit by a plethora of shoes, flower vases, and other dangers straight outta Garfield. Older Garfield, if you get my drift.

This part is perhaps a little too tough for your average gamer as in the higher levels, and at first even in the early, it can be a tough challenge just getting to your first window. But once you get inside a fully open gateway (and not all windows open all the way), you are thrust, Warioware style, straight into a mini-game with little to no explanation. It's tough, but "Bill" obviously wanted it that way. Trust me when I say this game has a completely retro level of difficulty.

There are a fair variety of window games here. Not as many as many contemporary titles, but they do have a little more depth than just a one-button challenge, and he managed to fit the whole game, music and all, in just 56,448 bytes. Those are bytes, sucka. Bytes!

Each game is themed around getting through some person's home. Some are just timed, some have a clear goal but you are given no clues as to which is which. I've got no problem with that, but this is just by way of a heads up. Games include avoiding a broom (and later more than one) with the psychic ability to hunt you down, catching a fish from a fish-bowl, a room where you must eat all the dog food without waking the dogs. They can be tense, and often you really feel a connection to the little pixelated feline. Maybe that's the message of this game. Once you beat enough rooms, your are brought to one of several mini-games aimed at catching the female. If you catch her, at the top of the room, the game starts over, faster, harder, and with new unlockables.

This game is fun, and there are many games that only seem to appear as you progress, but it does have a limited time-span. You eventually get into the groove of racking up points for points sake, which makes it all the more unfortunate that "Bill" produced no online score-system. Still, it's a fun game, and a small download. I'd give it a destructoid review score of 8. (Almost Great.An impressive effort with a few small issues problems holding it back. Definitely worth your time and cash.)

Download it for free, here: http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/game/91

You may need a Dos emulator, because it's been designed to work authentically from a dos prompt.

Shhhhh.