Alleycat 64

Alleycat 64 is a homebrew port made by Dosin of the MS-DOS classic and released on 25 August 1999. It was made to compete in the Presence of Mind ’99 competition where it won 14th place.

You can download the ROM and its file here by using the password thomasomalley. Yes, I do have the Aristocats on the mind.

Alleycat 64 style and gameplay

Alleycat 64 is an incomplete game. Dosin does mention this in the readme:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Alleycat64
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Welcome to my first effort on the n64, as you may have already noticed this isn’t exactly a Dreamcast winner, but I decided to release it anyway.

In case you don’t know, Alleycat is a CGA classic dating back from ’84 which I played a lot when I was younger.

It’s far from finished, mainly due to my loss of interest in the project, the world of 3d is much more exiting and I’ve been working on some 3d stuff lately so (alas) this one never got finished.

There still are several graphic glitches and the game is a bit buggy. But you should at least get a couple of minutes of enjoyment from it.

Greets + Thanks:
Actraiser – Dextrose, Nice guy, etc.
Frac – For helping me out a while back.
LOC – For helping with the Alleycat Intro sound (not in this release)
Immo+Widget – The DNX-files were a world of help!

all the people in #n64dev that I don’t know yet!

The author of the original Alleycat for all the enjoyment I had when I was younger.

P.S.: Look for a hidden surprise 😉

/Dosin

The game follows the same basic structure as the original Alleycat game but with some serious cutbacks. It keeps that old CGA graphics style for most of the game, but does add a more modern zooming effect for the intro and title screen.

There are three levels:

• Alleyway
• Living Room
• Fishbowl

Each of them are a simplified hazardless version of their MS-DOS counterpart. All the platforming is still there, but there are no obstacles or anything like that. The game is pretty much just a platforming challenge all the way through.

In the alleyway level, all you really need to do is hop on the garbage cans, then the fence and finally in through the window.

The living room stage is pretty much the same, it’s just a platforming challenge where you need to get up on the table and make your way into the fishbowl.

The fishbowl is the last stage in the game. It has four little fishies that you can eat, but nothing happens after they are eaten.

And that’s all there is to the game.

Conclusion

Alleycat 64 is an admittedly incomplete game, so there isn’t really much to say about it. It’s a bit more of a personal experiment than a true game that you’d want to play.

There isn’t any challenge to the game besides the wonky controls. The DOS game plays better because you can redirect your jumps while you’re airborne so it’s a lot easier to land your jumps correctly. This is especially necessary since the trash cans are in the perfect position to make it hard to land.

The fish in the fishbowl also have an incredibly small hitbox. It almost feels like there is no hitbox and the cat needs to share the exact same coordinates to the fish in order to eat them.

This is another game that I wouldn’t really recommend playing due to its lack of completion, but it does deserve its little place within the history of Nintendo 64 homebrew.