Kiblitzing: Alley Cat

[Jess Ragan]

http://kiblitzing.blogspot.com/2015/03/good-bad-kitty-ballad-of-alley-cat.html

 

I decided to give the game Alley Cat by Bill Williams a thorough examination. It's pretty good, when it's not trying to give you an aneurysm!

[Tempest]

I always loved playing this on my friends IBM PCjr. I grew up with the CGA version so the Atari version (and the Tandy color version) look garish to me.

 

I never knew the XE version was different than the PC version. Do you have a list of all the differences?

[Jess Ragan]

Not a complete list, no. Some of the stuff is pretty subtle... for instance, when a mouse knocks you off a clothesline, you see a large "SQUEAK!" printed on the screen in the PC version. In the Atari version, a piece of clothing falls off the line along with you. There seem to be two spiders in the Atari version's Spider Bytes mini-game; in the PC version, there's just one, but it's larger. Getting caught by a dog in the Lactic Action mini-game produces an ugly drawing of a dog calling "Here kitty kitty kitty!" in the PC version; in the Atari version, you just get a massive sign reading "OUCH!" If a dog starts to wake up in the same mini-game, the screen flashes red in the PC version; in the Atari version, the dog just growls menacingly. If you win the final challenge in the Atari version, you get fireworks; in the PC version, the screen fills with hearts and you get an intermission with dancing kittens in the later levels.

[Tempest]

Getting caught by a dog in the Lactic Action mini-game produces an ugly drawing of a dog calling "Here kitty kitty kitty!" in the PC version; i

Yeah I always hated that as a kid. It was creepy.

 

You also said there was a milk jug that would refill the milk bowls in the Atari version. I don't remember that in the PC version. That would make an already tough mini-game nearly impossible.

[+Ripdubski]

Interesting. I never knew it was made for the PC.