Video games have always been very important to me as a child. One game in paticular always comes to mind when I think of pre 1990s game which is Mappy, because it is the one game that my entire family enjoyed playing. Probably the most memberable thing from that game is the audio since there is no voice acting or any elaborate gameplay. Mappy is a 1983 arcade game by Midway Games, until Namco took it over. It is a side-scrolling platform game that features a cat and mouse theme, with the player taking control of the mouse Mappy.
The gameplay involves the player taking control of Mappy the police mouse and getting back the stolen items while avoiding being captured by the cats. Each item comes in a pair with a different value level.
In order to receive the maximum points the player would have to get each pair in a row to gain extra points. So everything is very straight forward which is to be expected from a simple arcade game, but just like with Pac Man the more levels you go up the harder it gets. Also just like Pac Man and other 8-bit arcade games there are 256 levels. Although the audio for the game is repeated with each level, the catchiness of it ofen doesn't bother you and you'll find yourself having the melody stuck in your head all day.
The Main menu screen does not have any sound to it at all though that would have been a nice touch, but I don't expect much from these kind of games. However as soon as you begin the main theme music begins to play. Also the tempo of the music will change when you are running out of time and begin to go faster, which I thought was a neat way to get the player to hurry up and finish the level. Now with each action you make such as collecting items, bouncing on the trampolines, or getting caught by the cats will have a diffferent sound for each one. All of the sounds are very basic with little variety but still very nice to hear aside from the main music playing in the background.
Although at some point I would have liked to hear a different song for the main game with each bonus level, which happens every forth round, there is a different theme that plays. It was a nice break form the main theme despite that fact I do enjoy listening to it. This paticular theme that plays on the bonus level indicates the amount of time you have to collect the ballons for extra points. When the music stops that means time is up and you will finish the bonus level whether you've collected all the ballons or not. I always enjoyed having the music be my clock to tell me how much time I had left. I feel it is a cool way to go about indicating the amount of time the player has left instead of just a timer on the screen.
Overall, I feel Mappy is a simple game with a simple audio track to go with it. Although it is not the most exciting soundtrack it is one that will always stick with you once you play the game. And I think that having something that people will always recognize is important for any game whether it's elaborate or not.
Below is a link to the main theme music of the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiuSCkprkZ0
Below is footage of actual game footage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS2oJw1jii4
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