Frisky Tom

Mice are a pain! Not only do they eat your cheese, but they also destroy your plumbing and attempt to blow up your water tank with high explosives. Frisky Tom is an arcade game which pits you, a plumber named Tom, against a seemingly limitless horde of rodents. Your job is to try and repair all of the damage to the water pipes in the building that is perpetrated by the mice.

The game arena is a long and winding pipe which makes its way from a water tank at the top of the screen, down to a collection tank at the bottom. Tom is able to climb up and along the pipes, and between two sections of pipe if the section he is currently clinging to is horizontal. Mice also can run about the maze of pipes, and Tom can swat these to earn points. Some of the mice occasionally turn purple, becoming dangerous to the touch and will often throw themselves kamikaze style directly at Tom, potentially causing the loss of a life.

The mice will also occasionally damage the pipes, causing pieces to fall to the ground. If Tom picks these up (he can carry two at a time) and returns them to the damaged location, then that section becomes fixed and the water will flow further along the pipes. If the pipe is completely undamaged, water will be collected in the lower tank, which is worth bonus points when the level is completed.

Later in the level, mice will place a bomb at the side of the upper water tank, and other mice will light the fuse. Tom can temporarily stop this by getting above the location of the fire on the fuse and falling off the pipe. As he falls past, his waving arms extinguish the spark on the fuse, delaying the inevitable kaboom. If it is delayed sufficiently, the level will be completed once all of the water has drained from the upper tank. Subsequent levels have exactly the same pipe layout, but faster and more numerous and malicious mice.