Mappy..Not Ratatouille..Pegged!

If you had played games on the Micro Genius or any other Nintendo Famicom clones, chances are you have played Namco's Cat and Mouse game.. Mappy.

In that game, you control the main character, a police mouse who goes about retrieving stolen goods from a house filled with burglar cats. This was one of my favourite games back when I was a kid. I didn't own a Micro Genius, but I played everytime I got the opportunity at my cousin's place.

This game has now been immortalised in .S (DOTS) puzzle form and feeling abit nostalgic, I bought one box from Play-Asia (my purchase details and how I spent a USD 10 voucher here). Let's have the pictures do the talking.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that this .S puzzle came with two pegboards, and enough pegs to make two separate characters/items at the same time! Very good value for money, since this was selling for less than a single peg board .S puzzle (e.g. Bomberman).

We are talking lots and lots of pegs here, 520 pegs and two peg boards, Nintendo DS not included! This thing is sold out on Play-Asia, and there's no one selling this on Ebay. So... tough luck?

This is how it looks likes, once you are done pushing pegs into the peg board. I still have lots of leftover pegs from this set and my previous Bomberman and Zelda sets.. All I need is a spare peg board to make somemore 8-bit characters.

Meet the whole gang: Bomberman, Zelda, and the Mappy fellas.

Dot-S Puzzle Review: Bomberman

For those who have been living under a shell for the past 20 years or so, Bomberman is a puzzle game where your in-game character goes about a maze-like levels placing (and detonating) bombs to blow up obstacles (such as walls) and enemies.

I remember playing the game alot on the Micro Genius (a Famicom clone) and it really was addictive and fun. I suppose many of you retro gamers share the same sentiment as well. The simple but venerable game design was recently included with Bomberman Land Touch!, and you can find the classic mode under the Bomberman Battle Pack option of the game.

The Dot-S (a.k.a DotS) Puzzle series brings back memories of old-school video game graphics and some pretty memorable characters, typically that of the NES era. Some of you might remember that I bought a Dot-S Puzzle from the Nintendo Version Collection featuring the character Link from the Legend of Zelda series.


Having been impressed by the quality of the Link Dot-S Puzzle and driven by nostalgia over the game Bomberman, I decided to order another Dot-S Puzzle from Play-Asia. The package arrived today containing the Dot-S Puzzle: Bomberman. When compared to the box that contained Link, the Bomberman box is considerably larger.

And what was inside the box? A large compliment of pegs, a peg board and a nice colour instruction booklet.


It takes sometime to complete a "push-peg" puzzle. It took me around 15 minutes to finish this particular puzzle with the help of the guide.


And now onto the finished item:

When Bomberman met Link:

As like the other Dot-S sets, there are always other modes (a.k.a "recipes") to explore with the large assortment of pegs. Some recipes can be found on the Dot-S website. For my original review of the Link Dot-S set, click here.

Interested in getting one for yourself? You can get find them at Play-Asia.com.

Living for the Weekend

What have you got planned for the weekend? I would be running in the forest reserve nearby, in anticipation of the Penang Bridge marathon (I'll be doing the half marathon, 20+ km) this June. Aside from that, I've a SD Gundam model to assemble.

I was told that SD stands for Super Deformed, and despite the weird sounding name, these SD models are pretty detailed. The one that I purchased earlier this evening is the Verde Buster Gundam from the Gundam Seed Stargazer anime. The thing I like about this model? The mask. The worse I can do is dip the whole thing in black paint, and make the model look like Zorro.

Now how's that for a limited edition SD Gundam? On to other purchases made today on Play-Asia:

- Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship 2007. This might be a suprise to some, but I do need to get my Collectible Card Game fix from somewhere right?
- Animal Crossing Character Phone Strap (Theater Version). Just released and rather cute looking and as a break from the norm, I just ordered 1 phone strap, instead of the entire set.

- Animal Crossing Character Bottle Phone Strap Gashapon (Theater Version). I've blogged about these before and my mum found them to be rather cute, not to mention interesting. So this one is for her. Interested as well? Purchase details are available here.


- Dot-S Puzzle: Bomberman (10-Type A). It has been a long time since I've bought one of these Dot-S puzzles, the last one being Link from the Legend of Zelda. Click here for purchase details.

Connect the Pegs

Trust the Land of the Rising Sun to come up with something quirky. Some call it a puzzle, some call it weird, some call it "some more Japanese stuff", just what are they referring to? These are some comments I got for a push-peg puzzle which I purchased just recently with my copy of Winning Eleven DS (review here).

Produced by Tomytec of Japan, the push-peg puzzle that I purchased is one part of 6 puzzles that make up the Dot-S Collection Nintendo Version. This Nintendo licensed collection commemorates characters from notable game franchises such as Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong.

Each push-peg puzzle comes with a push peg board and quite a number of pegs for you to recreate the pixelated form of a particular video game character. The one that I've got features Link from the Zelda series. I was provided with enough pegs to depict Link in two different kinds of poses, one from the front and the other from the side.


Additional "recipes" can be found at the Dot-S website, although you may need pegs from more than one puzzle to actually accomplish some.

To get your very own push-peg puzzle at Play-Asia.com, click here!