Alley Cat

Ever wanted to know what it’s like to live under a cat’s fur? You may just have found your thing. No, not that thing.

Alley Cat is a game from 1983 where you play as a, well, alley cat. This means you are enabled to do all the nice things that alley cats do: get mice, jump on aquariums, and overall just invade random people’s houses in search for stuff that cats enjoy. The main goal of the game is to get laid, which means you’ll have to fight off other prospectors, and finally get close to the very coveted not-so-alley female cat. You can think of this game as a feline Leisure Suit Larry. 

     Just chillin’.

The tasks of a cat chillin’ in the neighborhoods are not easy ones. This little piece of black fur must fight for survival, in an intensely aggressive and randomly painful universe. Not only he has to fend off huge bulldogs trampling purple floors, always looking for an easy target; this pre-cat videos on the internet creature even has to worry about mice. That’s right. Just jump at them the wrong way and kitty cat’s gone, kaput, done for, micecandy. You’d think he has 7 lives, as implied by the title screen, but you’d be wrong. This game is known for sharp puns (pun intended), since when you pause the game, you don’t pause it as much as you paws it. Bloody brilliant, ain’t it?  Other than that, in this cat's life, one has to evade brooms, electric eels, random stuff thrown out of windows, spiders bigger than Australia itself, and possibly Twilight fans looking for a buffed vampire.

Dogs in this game are not portrayed in the most positive light.

The gameplay is pretty smooth and swell. Most you have to do is to jump into random windows where you can find five different rooms. Once you finish the task proposed (usually in the form of getting birds, fishes, or just being an asshole and breaking vases around), you can move on to the female kitty room, avoid all the other cats trying to get frisky, and be glorious in your achievements. Just like going to those weird clubs in town. Moreover, in the platonic love room, you actually have to get her a gift, otherwise it’s useless going up to her. She’s only after your ‘cedes, bro. After that, the game starts getting harder; however, in case you want more of a challenge, you actually have more than one difficulty mode so trim your whiskers, as it can get tricky.

You can actually leave paw prints to keep the broom sweeping while you chase after rats who are clearly incapable of digesting huge chunks of cheese.

This being said, it’s a fun game. It might get you busy for over 10 minutes providing you’re not hungry. Or needing to pee. As I positively leave this text to do the latter, I’ll present you with a small gameplay video of Mr. Cat chasing after his holy grail (and failing masterfully at it).