Alley Cat

Moby ID: 190
Atari 8-bit Specs
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Description official description

Alley Cat is an action game consisting of several mini games tied together. You're a little black cat who wants to make love to a pretty lady cat that lives in an apartment complex. Play all kinds of cat-themed mini games in order to reach her and score as many points as you can while doing so.

You start out in an alley and need to get inside the apartment by climbing on garbage cans and a fence. Next, jump on a clothesline and through several open windows while big dogs try to eat you and people throw garbage at you. Outside of the apartment complex you can score points by eating the mice that run across the clotheslines. Once you've jumped through a window you enter a room where you play a randomly assigned mini game.

These mini games include: eating all the fish in a fish bowl, stealing milk from a bunch of bulldogs, pushing a birdcage from a table and eating the bird, catching mice inside a big cheese, pushing vases from a cabinet. To make things harder there's always a broom inside every room that tries to knock you around. You score points by completing the mini games within a certain time (the faster the better).

After you've completed a mini game you're back in the alley. Make your way back inside the apartment complex and you get a chance to play the love-cat game: try to reach the lady cat on the top row of hearts while rival male cats and cupid's arrows knock you down. After you've mated, the difficulty gets cranked up a notch.

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Credits (Atari 8-bit version)

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 80% (based on 1 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 82 ratings with 5 reviews)

Just about the cutest game ever made.

The Good
Everything -- what's not to like? It's challenging, it's beautifully drawn, it's smooth on a 8088, it has funny sounds and it's SO DARN CUTE!

The Bad
Possibly the annoying higher levels, where the dog is pretty much constantly on the screen.

The Bottom Line
Be there, or be square! (Then again, it may be the opposite, but you never know...)

PC Booter · by Tomer Gabel (4539) · 1999

I'M IN UR COMPUTERS. A few minutes' worth of feline fun.

The Good
Simple, undemanding fun

The Bad
The darned clothesline, may it wither and die

The Bottom Line
Gameplay

Quite a lot of fun, fast-action minigames, where our kitty jumps around with no moment of rest. It certainly brings back memories of all those Tom & Jerry shorts and gives you a chance to relive the slapstick from the hero's point of view. While sometimes the chaos can get a little frustrating - especially annoying are all the flying objects which can knock you off the clotheslines at the most inopportune time - all in all the experience is fun and charming.

What a pity, though, that once you complete the final errand, which can be done after mere minutes of play, you're back to repeating the whole process all over again. This isn't really a long-term game; instead, it's meant for a few minutes' relaxation.

Control

Controlling your feline is quite difficult, since it has a tendency to make huge, uncontrollable leaps (or - alternately - jump shorter than you want it to). The hardest part must be the clothesline - getting into a window is a bit confusing, and you'll end up falling off more often than not; good thing it doesn't cost you a life.

Difficulty

Alley Cat doesn't attempt to be a frustratingly hard joystick-breaker - the easiest skill level is simple to beat even for people without lightning-fast reflexes. The hardest level, though, is other thing... but that's just what you'd expect.

Graphics

Alley Cat is a typical child of its era: do not expect a lot of colors or hi-res graphics. But even those CGA visuals, while not beautiful, at least are functional - simple and not confusing.

Music/Sound

PC Speaker all the way, but what'd you expect? Thankfully, it doesn't frustratingly beep in your ear all the time, and - if you're in a good mood - you might even consider leaving it on to complement the frantic gameplay.

Scope/Longevity

Just a few minutes of play. Rinse and repeat. As said above, this is a relaxation game and not an epic.

PC Booter · by Havoc Crow (29798) · 2008

Cute and exciting...

The Good
This was one of the first games I played that has Tweaked Pc Speaker sound effects. It really amazed me. When you "die" you can hear a real "Me-oooow" out of your Pc speaker, I loved it! Just like the music. It was very cool and it gave the game more life. Also the different scenes of the game. It was a very small game but you could do a lot of different things... A Masterpiece!

The Bad
Uh... :-)

The Bottom Line
A nice cute kitty kitty game. Do what Real Cats do. Very cool Game!

PC Booter · by Donny K. (451) · 1999

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

Compatibility

Alley Cat was one of the few games of the 1980s that was programmed with full attention to different PC speeds. It's an early, old game--yet it runs perfectly on any machine. The reason it runs on any computer today is, upon loading, the first thing it performs is a mathematical routine to determine the speed of your processor, and as of 2003 we've yet to build an Intel PC too fast to play it.

PCjr / Tandy support

The game supports the PCjr out of the box and uses an alternate CGA palette. However, Tandy support wasn't available until an amateur patch was created in 2015. It can be found here.

Hidden message

Bill Williams hid the message, "MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU" within the programming code of the game.

Sales

Bill Williams only made $600 on Alley Cat.

Information also contributed by: WizardX

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Related Games

Alley Cat 2
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Alley Cat: Remeow Edition
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Blade Alley
Released 1986 on Galaksija
Blade Alley
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Alley Rally
Released 1976 on Arcade
The Alley
Released 1973 on Mainframe
Cold Alley
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Alley Oops
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Torpedo Alley
Released 1985 on DOS, Commodore 64, Apple II

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  • MobyGames ID: 190
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Donny K..

Atari 8-bit added by Kabushi. PC-88 added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Roedie, Jeanne, j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】, Neville, Patrick Bregger, br33ch.

Game added August 9, 1999. Last modified March 8, 2024.