Mole Mania, known in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 as , is a video game developed by Nintendo EAD and Pax Softnica

Pax Softnica

is a Japanese video game developer founded in 1983 under the name Image Soft and based in Kanagawa, Japan. Pax Softnica developed strong ties with Nintendo, and was hired often as a subcontracted programmer to work with Nintendo EAD and Nintendo R&D1 on several games published on Nintendo consoles....

, and published by Nintendo

Nintendo

is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....

 for the original Game Boy

Game Boy

The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...

. It is also one of the least known works of Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto

is a Japanese video game designer and producer. Miyamoto was born and raised in Kyoto Prefecture; the natural surroundings of Kyoto inspired much of Miyamoto's later work....

.

Story

The story involves a mole named Muddy Mole

Mole (animal)

Moles are small cylindrical mammals adapted to a subterranean lifestyle. They have velvety fur; tiny or invisible ears and eyes; and short, powerful limbs with large paws oriented for digging. The term is especially and most properly used for the true moles, those of the Talpidae family in the...

 (known in Japan as ), whose wife and children have been stolen by the farmer, Jinbe. Muddy then had to go find his wife and children by finding his way through puzzle based worlds.

Gameplay

In the game, Muddy has to move a black ball to a gate at the end of the screen in order to get to the next screen. He can push, pull, and throw the black ball. Muddy could also dig into soft ground to find underground paths around obstacles. Choosing where to dig was a crucial element of the game's various puzzles, as creating holes in the wrong areas could hinder the player's efforts to advance. Dropping the ball into a hole would cause it to return to its starting point. Given the nature of Muddy's ability to move the ball, digging holes in the wrong places could make reaching the gate with the ball completely impossible, requiring Muddy to leave the screen and then return to try again. Along the way, there were many obstacles, such as moving enemies, pipes

Pipe (material)

A pipe is a tubular section or hollow cylinder, usually but not necessarily of circular cross-section, used mainly to convey substances which can flow — liquids and gases , slurries, powders, masses of small solids...

, barrels, weights, and bosses.

Reception

• Gamerankings - 74% (based on 2 reviews)
• Nintendo Power
  Nintendo Power
  Nintendo Power magazine is a monthly news and strategy magazine formerly published in-house by Nintendo of America, but now run independently. As of issue #222 , Nintendo contracted publishing duties to Future US, the U.S. subsidiary of British publisher Future.The first issue published was...
  
   - 3.4/5
• IGN
  IGN
  IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
  
  - 8/10

External links

• Official Nintendo web page (Japanese) (Translated with Excite.Co.Jp's translator | Translated with Google's translator)
• VG Museum (Screenshots)
• Mole Mania at NinDB
• Mole Mania at Hardcore Gaming 101