Lost In Translation/Mappy

About The Game
Mappy is an arcade video game.

You are the MOUSE'S controlling force. It is up to you to direct him through the maze of floors and doors to gather his treasures. Your job is to develop CAT avoidance strategies to keep him away from his pursuers (the CATS), and to give him guidance while gathering his treasures.

These pursuers are very sneaky and, if given half a chance, will try to corner your MOUSE at the end of one of the platforms or to trap him on one of the floors he must use to get to the treasures he's after.

The MOUSE'S pursuers have no defense mechanisms of any kind. But they CANNOT be PERMANENTLY eliminated either. As soon as your MOUSE puts one pursuer out of commission, another appears somewhere else on the screen.

However, in an emergency, your MOUSE can slow one pursuer down for short periods of time. This is accomplished by having him throw open a standard door in his pursuers face to knock him down and stun him. When hit by the door, his pursuer will be stunned for several seconds. When he is disabled like this, the MOUSE can walk right by him and not be caught. To temporarily eliminate more than one pursuer at a time, you must catch them in the radar waves emitted when opening the thick flashing doors.

As your skill level increases, the number and direction of pursuers coming at your MOUSE at any one time and the speed with which they move, is gradually increased; plus, their pursuit patterns become more and more devious while their overall accuracy is highly improved.

Bonus MICE are awarded to you periodically throughout the game as you reach or pass certain preselected point values.

A Bonus Rack is awarded to you as your 3rd Rack and every 4th Rack thereafter i.e. in the 7th, 11th, 15th, 19th, etc. Racks.

When your MOUSE completes a Rack, the screen is cleared, the number of the next Rack is displayed in the center of the screen, the next Rack maze appears on the screen, your MOUSE appears at the bottom right hand corner of the screen, and play begins anew.

Trivia
Released in March 1983.

Licensed to Bally Midway for US manufacture and distribution (March 1983).

Mappy is the first game from Namco to include the "ALL RIGHTS RESERVED" on the titlescreen.

The mapping of the level counters in Mappy is a little strange; after level 49, the level symbols in the bottom right corner temporarily stop updating, but the numerical level counter and the high score display both record the proper level. The level symbols then start displaying correctly again at level 100 and continues to display correctly until level 254. Level 255 morphs into Level 0. Then the game starts over again and becomes easy again for level 1.

Mappy is likely derived from 'mappo', a Japanese slang term (slightly insulting) for a policeman.

Greg Bond holds the official record for this game with 658,160 points on June 27, 2002.

Easter Egg

 * 1) Enter service mode.
 * 2) Keep Left pressed to make the screen scroll left until the grid covers the whole screen.
 * 3) Press the service switch 3 times (the one that adds a credit, not the one to enter service mode).
 * 4) Keep Button 1 pressed and enter the following sequence : Left(x4), Start1(x6), Left(x3), Start2. '(c) 1983 NAMCO' will appear on the screen.

Easter Egg 2

 * 1) Play the game and reach the third bonus round (the one after round 10).
 * 2) Press Button1(x3), Start1(x3) and Start2(x3).

After the score of the bonus round is shown, this text will be added at the bottom of the screen : '(c) 1983 NAMCO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED'.

Series

 * 1) Mappy (1983)
 * 2) Hopping Mappy (1986)
 * 3) Mappy Land (1986, Nintendo Famicom)

Staff

 * Music By:
 * Nobuyuki Ohnogi

Ports

 * Consoles :
 * Nintendo Famicom (1984)
 * Epoch corporation super cassette vision (1984)
 * Sega Game Gear (1991)
 * Nintendo Game Boy Color (1996, "Namco Gallery Vol.1")
 * Sony PlayStation (1996, "Namco Museum Vol.2")
 * Sony PlayStation 2 (2005, "Namco Museum 50th Anniversary")
 * Microsoft XBOX (2005, "Namco Museum 50th Anniversary")
 * Nintendo GameCube (2005, "Namco Museum 50th Anniversary")
 * Sony PSP (2005, "Namco Museum Battle Collection")


 * Computers :
 * Fujitsu FM-7 (1983)
 * MSX (1984)
 * PC [MS Windows, CD-Rom] (1997, Namco History Vol.1")
 * PC [MS Windows, CD-Rom] (1998, "Microsoft Revenge of Arcade")
 * PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (2005, "Namco Museum 50th Anniversary")
 * Sord-M5
 * NEC PC-6001
 * NEC PC-8001
 * NEC PC-8801
 * NEC PC-9800 series
 * Sharp X1
 * Sharp MZ1200/1500
 * Sharp MZ2500
 * Sharp X68000


 * Others :
 * LCD handheld game (19?? - MGA (Micro Games of America))
 * Arcade (1995, "Namco Classics Collection Vol.1")
 * Ms. Pac-Man TV Game (2004 - Jakk's Pacific)
 * Ms. Pac-Man TV Game Wireless Version (2005 - Jakk's Pacific)