"A mouse and cat chase. Bounce off trampolines and walls! Pop balloons!"

Mappy has cute characters and encourages you to bounce on trampolines and off walls for your own self-preservation. With the catchiest background music and several sub-strategies, this little game where you scroll back and forth in a mansion picking up treasures is immediately attractive and stays that way. From the opening scene, when you see Mappy the Micro Police mouse chase the cats into a huge mansion and jump on a trampoline, only for a question mark to appear above his head, to the ''game over'' scene where purple Meowkies(big-headed cats) bounce around(never the same way twice) and, if you are lucky enough, the display where Goro the big cat bounces back and forth as you enter you high score initials, the game never looks or sounds dull. It even has a bit of poorly translated English(Goro is Boss the Big Bit, Meowkies are Naughty Folks) and is a charming game where you will catch yourself strategizing and taking plenty of evasive action.

You, as Mappy(the Micro Police,) have ten treasures to collect in order to advance to a new level. Touching cats anywhere on a platform kills you, but bouncing on the trampolines is safe unless you try to bounce four times in a row, in which case Mappy falls through and dies. There are five different types(safe, radio, TV, painting, and computer,) and collecting each pair in order will increase your multiplier(the obvious challenge, picking everything up in order, may cause greed that endangers your safety.) There are also doors you can open from relatively far off in cats' faces to stun them, although the doors may brush you back as well. Some doors even create microwave rays that sweep out all cats for a nonlinear bonus. In addition, Goro, who has a set zigzagging path, hides behind treasures, and you get a special bonus for uncovering him. Every four levels after the third, you get a bonus wave where Mappy must bounce on trampolines and catch all the balloons by a few seconds after a song ends, and if you seem to botch things you can cut your losses by quickly moving to the big balloon worth ten times the rest. You can't die by falling through a trampoline, but the level tempts you to gamble that you can figure it out.

There's no direct vertical control in this game, although if you are bouncing on a side trampoline, you can hit the wall(bouncing off trampolines AND walls allows further prohibited vicarious enjoyments--parents wouldn't allow me to jump on my bed until I was too big) to throw any kitties close to you off(they can blanket you when you jump.) The downside is that you'll have less time before you fall through a trampoline. Opening doors is also a bit confusing until you realize you can operate them from a distance, and you'll find that you'll want to jump onto a platform at the last minute to throw cats off. One part of the AI I found clever was that cats anticipate ''leaning.'' A cat usually appears to the left and moves away from you unless you push the joystick to the left to start the level. It's a nasty shock but fair. Although they're usually restricted to a general beeline toward you, Meowkies aren't just arbitrarily cute faces.

And they provide different challenges as the levels increase. After the first bonus round, they get faster than you(maybe Mappy should get rid of that nightstick he's waving that does no good when he actually confronts a kitty,) forcing you to use the trampolines where you're a bit quicker as a breather--going across a long stretch of platform is very risky especially when a cat may be at the other end(you don't have radar to figure this out.) Strangely levels 4-6, which first allow you to walk in the blocked-view attic(fun if not healthy,) are tougher than 8-10, which don't have long platforms but allow you to drop a bell on the cats if you bounce all the way up from a side trampoline. Levels 12-14 have flashing floors that temporarily disappear after you run over them, but they include fewer doors to aid you, and the number of cats slowly increases in any case, while the time before the ''hurry'' message and subsequent more, faster cats gets less, too. Each bonus level also adds a small twist.

But Mappy is heavy on charm, so even if you don't care about being any good at it, you'll still have a fun time. Animals jumping on trampolines are fun to watch in any case, but when flap their paws uselessly and often open their mouths when yelling they will win you over. Goro's particularly good at this, even funnier when he scuttles crab-like across a platform, and he also shines when you catch him behind a treasure, when he pulls out a sign reading ''1000'' as if in protest. The game even allows you a reminder of what you need to pick up to increase your multiplier; the right item to do so will flash. Even when you die, Mappy in his blue uniform spins around to a new tune and lands on his head with his eyes boggling before rigor mortis but holds on to his useless nightstick. I enjoy icons as you build up levels and the different roofs that appear after each bonus round, and the scores that pop up never get in the way. I've mentioned the two ending scenarios that I like as well. Although sometimes animals start to overlap on the higher levels, you'll be too entertained to be annoyed for long, and anyway, in a charitable break, cats can overlap Mappy slightly before he dies. The sound may be the best for an early eighties game, the result being that you seem to be watching a dance out of technology's first response to a performance of the Nutcracker. The background's part ragtime ditty, part cartoon jingle, evolving into a western tune. Every significant event has a unique tune: extra man, the bonus round and its introductory clip, game over, and getting a high score list, which has a faked but still funky baseline. Occasionally two things will happen in short succession cutting off the first clever tune, but there are

This game breaks many simple real-life rules(mouse bigger than cats, acceleration due to the Law of Gravitation) that you don't care about, and it sticks to the important ones that make good games. Relatively minor peeves do crop up; doors are a bit counterintuitive to use, and you may spend more time than you'd like bouncing onto a platform and off waiting to make your break. But the graphics, sound, challenge and variety are all there. Even when you get relatively far, there may be problems of going for points or levels or figuring out the bonus levels, so experienced players will still have tough choices added to the fun of making cute animals bounce about. And anyone who doesn't find that sufficiently interesting should be spun around and pushed on his head until his eyes boggle a whole bunch.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/25/00, Updated 02/19/02