Mouse Trap is a 1981 arcade game released by Exidy, similar to Pac-Man. It was ported to three home systems by Coleco; Coleco's ColecoVision, Mattel's Intellivision, and the Atari 2600. It is also one of the first games on home consoles to have a looping background musical track, which is present in most versions. Many differences between Pac-Man and Mouse Trap are aesthetic: the dots become cheese, the player is a mouse, the ghosts are cats, and power pills are bones that turn the player into a dog. The gameplay of Mouse Trap differs from that of Pac-Man in the following ways: The player can open and close the yellow, red, and blue sets of doors at the press of a matching colored button. The player can store dog bones for later use at his or her discretion by pressing a fourth button — a large round "Doggie Button" with a picture of the dog's head on it. The four ghosts are replaced by six cats, worth 100 points for the first cat eaten, 300 for the second, 500 for the third, 700 for the fourth, and 900 for the fifth and subsequent cats. Point values reset when another bone is used. Each cat eaten spawns a slightly faster replacement. A seventh monster, a hawk, will eat both mouse and dog. Only the mid-screen "IN" field stops the hawk, by causing it to move randomly instead of chasing the player, but this will beam the mouse into one of the four corners. Bonus point prizes do not appear at intervals, but are constantly available. Eating one triggers the next in the series to appear. Point values start at 1000 for the first prize and increase by 200 for each subsequent prize, with the last prize being worth 7200 points. When the last prize is eaten or the player loses a life, the sequence restarts. There are thirty-two in all: a wedge of Swiss cheese, a paperclip, a safety pin, a key, an apple, a trophy, a candlestick, a pair of scissors, a pair of pliers, a pair of eyeglasses, a clock, a bottle, a gem, a bugle, a screw, a hammer, a diamond ring, a light bulb, a...
Tags: arcade; exidy; maze