Pitman (video game)

"Pitman", also known as "Catrap", is a video game released by Asmik for the Nintendo Game Boy in 1990. The word 'Catrap' refers to the frequent amount of times the player is trapped and needs to reverse their movements and the two anthropomorphic cats the player can maneuver to advance through the levels.

Game Mechanics

Pit Man is a puzzle game. The player maneuvers the player, an anthropomorphic cat, to navigate a room while clearing obstacles and kicking monsters and ghosts off the screen. Once the player has knocked all of the enemies off the screen, they advance to the next level, this can prove difficult for the player as increasingly intricate obstacles are presented for them to overcome to destroy all of the monsters and ghosts. The easiest route to solve the problem is through trial and error, where the player tries one combination of maneuvers and moving the obstacle in one direction, then they may find themselves trapped then the player can hit the 'A'-button, to reverse their movements and try again in a different way until the player finds the solution that enables them to access all of the baddies to knock them of the screen. Trial and error makes up a large portion of the game.

Difficulty

There are 100 levels for the player to clear, each one more difficult than the last meaning more room for error and therefore typically take longer to complete. The first level involves no obstacles with one monster on the opposite side of the screen to knock off, the last level involves a blockade of boulders and a conundrum of ladders for the player to move and navigate to clear several floating ghosts, it is the hardest level with the smallest margin for error.

History

The game concept was originally created in 1985 on a MZ-700 homecomputer by Yutaka Isokawa. The BASIC listing of the game was published in a magazine "Oh!MZ Publications" in 1987. The popularity of the game caused it to be picked up for Gameboy conversion in 1990. In the Gameboy version there is a nod to the MZ-700 version, the layout of round 77 is a big M and Z. In 2004 it was released for I-mode mobile phones as Pitmania and Pitmania 2, with graphics more similar to the original MZ700 game. Pitmania 1 Infinite was released in 2007, which had improved and more colorful graphics.

External links

* [http://www.gamespot.com/gameboy/puzzle/catrap/index.html GameSpot page for Pitman (Catrap)]
*moby game|id=/catrap|name="Pitman"
* [http://isokawa.net/web/sakuhin.html Yutaka Isokawa website]