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Mouse Trap

Mouse Trap is a maze video game developed by Exidy and released in arcades in 1981. It is similar to Pac-Man, with the main character replaced by a mouse, the dots with cheese, the ghosts with cats, and the energizers with bones. After collecting a bone, pressing a button turns the mouse into a dog for a brief period of time. Color-coded doors in the maze can be toggled by pressing a button of the same color. A hawk periodically flies across the maze, unrestricted by walls.
More information can be found at the wiki.

Tools Used

  • BizHawk 2.8

Effort In TASing

I've held onto this game for a while. The main reason was a problem with the "Hawk" coming out, right before I ate the last piece of cheese. Why is this a problem? There is a timer that indicates when this hawk shows up. Once it does, you have to endure the completion of the entrance sound. I tried multiple times to beat it and there was no way. I even asked DrD2k9 and he confirmed the same. So basically, every round was completed just after the arrival of the hawk. So this meant that I had to make sure that I got it before the sounds was finished playing, otherwise...I loose time.

Difficulty and Ending Choice

This game is played on the hardest level of 4.
As with the wr speedrun (seen below), I complete 6 rounds...which the runner calls 6 levels. This show-cases all the game has to offer, in terms of difficulty. If you listen closely, the tune changes every 2 completed rounds. After round 6, the tune stays the same. This is in relationship to the intensity of the cat's movement...or the games increasing difficulty.

Human Comparison



TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #9105: nymx's Coleco Mouse Trap in 02:10.53
GJTASer2018
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It looks like the score rolls at one million (based on Twin Galaxies records), but did you test if anything strange happens at maze 256 (or a similar point known to cause problems in these early games)? Interestingly, playing for points (assuming that they can't be racked indefinitely because of a killscreen or something similar) would be very different than for speed because of the points from "eating" the cats as well as the bonus items mechanic:
linked Wikipedia article wrote:
At any given time, a bonus object is present in the maze and can be eaten for points, causing a more valuable object to appear elsewhere. The bonus sequence restarts when the player either loses a life or eats the most valuable object in the sequence. When all of the cheese has been eaten, the player earns a bonus and moves to the next level.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
nymx
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
It looks like the score rolls at one million (based on Twin Galaxies records), but did you test if anything strange happens at maze 256 (or a similar point known to cause problems in these early games)? Interestingly, playing for points (assuming that they can't be racked indefinitely because of a killscreen or something similar) would be very different than for speed because of the points from "eating" the cats as well as the bonus items mechanic:
linked Wikipedia article wrote:
At any given time, a bonus object is present in the maze and can be eaten for points, causing a more valuable object to appear elsewhere. The bonus sequence restarts when the player either loses a life or eats the most valuable object in the sequence. When all of the cheese has been eaten, the player earns a bonus and moves to the next level.
Yes. Different versions have various number of bonus objects to collect. I can't remember which ones have which, but I think one version has 16 of them...which I think is this one. Aside from that, I usually like to go for fastest completion, to the point where difficulty doesn't increase. I have thought about the version you are stating, but it took so long to figure out this optimization that I'm not motivated to do a long category for high scoring. Maybe one day.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX