Mop 'n' Bop

It's not petpet abuse, it's simple bathing! If you're on the Yurble's side in Mop 'n' Bop, anyway. Your job, playing the janitor as he patrols the Hall of Heroes in Altador, is to keep the place clean by smacking all the dirty petpets wandering through with a big, wet mop. There aren't any of those crazy Petpet Protection League members opposing you, fortunately; they're too busy with that Terror Mountain debacle, I guess.

As petpets go past the player, you have to power up your mop and smack them with it to clean them up; the more power you put into your mop, the cleaner they'll get. Throughout the game, you're just going round and round in the Hall, so further levels only mean an increase in difficulty and upgrade possibility. There are no changes in scenery.

You're no match for me, Minitheus!

Controls

The janitor always moves forward in Mop 'n' Bop, so you don't need to do anything to make him move. To swing the mop, you need to fill up the gauge at the top of the screen by pressing your left mouse button. To swing it, just let go of your mouse button; make sure to swing it only when a petpet is right in front of or behind you. The longer you press down on the mouse button, the stronger your swing will be; it'll be at maximum power when you've completely filled up the power gauge.

You can also try to mash the mouse and swing the mop a few more times after the first. This way, you can get the petpet just a bit cleaner and prevent your dirt meter from rising too quickly. (Thanks to tumpkin for this tip.)

If you swing and miss a petpet, the janitor will fume for a few seconds, during which nothing can be done. To prevent this, you can start recharging the mop before it hits the floor. This will give you that extra boost that can be very helpful in those quick cleanups! (Thanks to cachorritalinda12jl for this tip.) Also, press the space bar to launch the water from the janitor's bucket. For quick upgrades, just press your Shift key to bring up that menu.

Petpets

Petpets are your enemies (of sorts) in the game. They're all covered in dirt and are trailing it all over the Hall, and if you don't clean them and their trails of dirt then a small circle at the top of the screen will start filling up. When that circle is full of dirt and debris, it's game over for you.

There are several different types of petpets in the game, each with varying characteristics.

The Minitheus is the most common and simplest petpet. It walks along at a fair pace, easy to hit until they start coming in multiples with other types of petpets.

Altachucks are basically just like Minitheuses, though a bit faster; they're still nothing much to worry about.

Alabrisses, too, are fairly easy to clean and aren't too fast, though there's one unimportant detail different from the first two petpets: they fly. Only a foot or two off of the ground, fortunately, but at least it's something different.

With Vaeoluses, the game starts getting difficult. They also fly, but they're much quicker than Alabrisses. When they start appearing, you've got to be more alert.

Altalaphuses bounce, and they're possibly the hardest petpet to clean because of their speed; if you're not careful, you might miss some of them entirely.

Upgrades

There are two things that you can upgrade as you progress through the levels: your mop handle and mop head. When you upgrade, you have the choice between different handles/heads. If you upgrade the handle, it charges power faster. After you've upgraded it, you can toggle between that upgrade and another one that would slow down charging power and increase walking speed. Look at the image below for an example.

If you don't upgrade your mop head quickly, you won't have enough power to fully clean the petpets.

You have the choice to upgrade either your handle or mop once every cycle around the Hall. That means every time you pass the statue of King Altador, you can upgrade one of them. Both of them have only two upgrades each, however, so after you've gotten all four, you can't upgrade anymore.

Upgraded handles increase your walking and gauge-filling speed. The option on the left lets you walk slower but increases your gauge filling speed; the option on the right does the opposite. The middle option is a fair balance of the two abilities.

Upgraded mop heads increase cleaning power but vary in area of effect, meaning you have to aim more carefully to hit petpets. When you've fully upgraded them, the left option widens the area of effect but lowers your cleaning power. The option on the right beefs up your cleaning power but decreases your area of effect. The middle option is a fair balance of the two abilities.

Power-Ups

There are five different power-ups; each, of course, has a different effect, and all are occasionally dropped from petpets you've cleaned up. Though some look similar, it's easy to distinguish them after you know what they do.

Power: Cleaning up petpets is made much easier by the great increase in your mop's strength; not much dirt will be able to stand up to you when you have this.

Honey: This decreases the janitor's fuming time if he misses a petpet. Hopefully that doesn't happen too often, though!

Money: You just get a small amount of game points; useful, but still maybe the worst of the power-ups.

Speed: This power-up is probably the best of all; it about doubles the janitor's walking and power rejuvenating speed, making smacking petpets as easy as pie. Like all of the other power-ups (except the money one), though, it unfortunately only lasts for a few seconds.

Water: Slowly fills up the bucket at the top of the game screen as you collect more and more of the droplets. When you have some, you can click on the bucket to throw your collected water at any petpets in front of you. You can click on the bucket itself to throw it but it is much easier to tap the space bar instead. Throw water when it's an emergency and you're close to losing.

A Secret?

Or lack of one, really. The janitor in the game is actually from past plots on Neopets: first in the Lost Desert puzzle plot as the foreman/chef, and in the Altador mini-plot as a janitor working in the Hall of Heroes. So, to those who suddenly made the connection between the two plots, it's already been figured out. Sorry.

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