Game Review: Alley Cat (1984)

At the request of a friend, I have decided to look into a game from the 1980's that was one of the earliest titles I played on my IBM desktop PC. Alley Cat, as the title states, is a game where you control a street cat, performing cat parkour moves in its quest for fish, milk, mice, and everything a cat could ever want.

Not your ordinary cat

The game starts out in an alley, with an apartment building in the background. The objective is to enter any apartment when a window randomly opens, although objects are usually thrown out of the window at the cat. Once the cat successfully enters an apartment, any of the following challenges can be encountered:

• Fishbowl: Get into the fishbowl, then eat all the fish inside, while avoiding electric eels
• Mice in cheese: Catch all the mice hiding inside a gigantic piece of cheese
• Milk: Drink all the milk in dog feeding bowls while not waking up the sleeping dogs
• Birdcage: Push a birdcage off a table, the catch the bird as it escapes
• Ferns: Collect 3 pots of Ferns off a bookshelf, while avoiding a spider

Mice Heaven

Birdcage challenge

Additionally, in each room, an animated broom will attempt to sweep the cat out of the apartment. The game focuses on navigational challenges and puzzles, and most obstacles are capable of taking one life point out of the cat (with the exception of the broom). Successfully completing a challenge room then brings the cat back out into the alley where a female cat will now appear in one of the randomly opening windows. The next step is to enter this new apartment where the cat has to navigate his way up to the female cat. Reaching the female cat then awards the player one additional life point, and increases the game difficulty. The entire game play then repeats itself.

Fish!

Who put eels in here?

In summary, Alley Cat is a fun-themed game with creative puzzles and challenges. The game is open-ended and will repetitively show the same challenges with increasing difficulty until the player loses all lives or quits the game. For anyone who is interested in old PC games, this is a recommended title, and suitable for children.

Dogs do not make good housemates

Now, for my unanswered questions about the game:

• Why are the apartment owners not around if the windows are open and objects thrown out?
• The brooms are all animated: are the apartment residents witches?
• Where did the giant cheese come from, and how was it moved inside?
• Why is the fishbowl bigger on the inside, and who puts ELECTRIC EELS in it?
• Why are there more dog feeding bowls than dogs?