Monthly Archives: December 2020

Photo-A-Day, Toys, Video Game

Adding MAPPY to my World’s Smallest Video Games Tiny Arcade

My Super Impulse Worlds Smallest Arcade
Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00706

Super Impulse has sent me quite few of their World’s Smallest series of Tiny Arcade video games. They recently sent me a free World’s Smallest version of Tiny Arcade Mappy. Mappy is one of those early 80’s games that was put out by the makers of Pac-Man, NAMCO. It was even made on the Namco Super Pac-Man hardware modified to support horizontal scrolling. The game features a police mouse called Mappy who is retrieving items that were stolen by several cats, Meowkie. Mappy must not get caught by the cats or he dies. The stolen items are within a mansion that has several floors. Mappy gets from floor to floor by jumping on a trampoline. He can get to different floors on the way up but not the way down and if he uses the trampoline too many times it breaks.

This is an entertaining game and requires timing and skill. Mappy can run around on the floors and open doors that can momentarily stun the Meowkies. Blue doors when opened shoot a microwave at the Meowkies and can carry them off screen which can allow Mappy to score additional points.

It was a fun game as a kids and even more fun to ad it to my mini arcade collection.

Mappy

Mappy can be found on Amazon.com for $19.99 and if you were interested in picking this up you can through my affiliate link below.

Movie, Photo-A-Day, Review

Wolfwalkers Direct-To-Draw Event and Movie Review

The Kids Drawings
Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00705

Apple TV + invited us to screen the upcoming movie Wolfwalkers and have a drawing event for the kids for which they provided a box of goodies for free. Opinions are our own.

On December 11th a truly beautiful movie is coming to Apple TV+ on December 11, 2020. The movie is about a young girl named Robyn who wants to be a wolf hunter like her father until she meets a Wolfwalker and her life is changed forever. the movie is set in Ireland and is a hand drawn animation movie that is visually astounding. The voice talent is fantastic including Sean Bean. The movie was created at Cartoon Saloon, an Irish animation film and television studio based in Kilkenny, Ireland. The movie was directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart with art direction from Maria Pareja.

Our direct to draw event was attended by other blogger families and we were able to talk with and ask questions of filmmakers Tomm Moore (Director) and Ross Stewart (Director) as well as Maria Pareja (Art Director), and Grainne Fordham (Layout Artist). We were provided with links to download some drawing model sheets on the characters so that the kids could look at those and get ideas on how to draw the characters. We watched as the characters and backgrounds were drawn and learned about the style and inspiration.

Wolfwalkers drawing kits

I printed out all of the character sheets and put them out with the box that Apple TV+ sent to us.

Opened Wolfwalker Kit

The kit contained some great surprises for the kids including a graphic novel of the movie that is on thick glossy paper and has the beautiful art from the movie. There were also a couple of journals, some colored pencils for each of the kids, Two Wolfwalkers Activity Pages, paintable cookies, town tasties (chocolate chip banana bread) and also little leaves that have seeds embedded in them that we can plant to get wildflowers this Spring. The movie has themes on caring for the nature around us instead of trying to dominate it. Other themes include learning about differences and celebrating them.

I worked last night so I woke up moments before the event set everything up and sat on the couch with the kids as they started drawing.

Set Up for WolfWalker

The kids really enjoyed learning more about the movie and seeing other kids on the event call who asked questions. We had to change up our question because it was asked already when it got to us but we were able to roll with it.

Kids Drawing

This event made the movie even more enjoyable for us and we are looking forward to watching it again when it comes to Apple TV+ this Friday. Don’t miss it and make sure that you have some drawing materials handy because your kids may become inspired.

Mebh Cookies

And do not forget to have some town tasties on hand either!