Perfectly serviceable brick breaker ala Arkanoid, there are roughly 24 stages broken into 4 stage chunks.

1. A stationary level
2. The same level but this time the blocks move horizontally across the screen.
3. The same again moving vertically, but with no risk factor of blocks hitting your ship, I figure these levels factor well into getting a high score.
4. A bonus stage resembling a Super Mario Bros character where your ball breaks through blocks with a time limit.

In 1989 I could imagine this being a fun and novel experience as you work towards high scores, Alleyway controls as smooth as butter.

¿Qué carajos haces Mario?
Este juego es bastante aburrido, aunque al menos tiene 3 tipos de nivel, el base, con cierto tipo de obstáculos y estructuras, el segundo es agarrar el modelo base pero en movimiento y el tercero es bajar el mismo nivel y al final te aparece o el mismo o una variante de este.
En total son 24 niveles con ciertos bonus donde las estructuras son en forma de personajes de Super Mario. Al final te recompensan con una imagen de Mario(con el diseño de DK clásico).
Y eso es todo, no tiene ni trasfondo del porque Mario está en esa nave y es un juego bastante sencillo tipo Arcade en el que sí lo acabas, tu puntaje sigue y se reinicia todo, con un total de 5 flores(9999 puntos cada flor) y otros 9999 puntos sería lo máximo que podrías conseguir.
¿Donde carajos está la música? Solo hay para los bonus, otra razón por la que lo hace aburrido y es que no tiene "ambiente".
-Juego completado en una Nintendo Switch

this might be one of my favorite games ever and it's just a breakout clone for the gameboy I'm not joking what's wrong with me

"See that stick? That's Mario."

Played on NSO Gameboy

It's a Breakout clone for the Game Boy. It's pretty no frills - just piloting a paddle, hitting a ball into some blocks, and racking up a high score. You have some speed control by holding A or B, but there are no power ups or other player mechanics. The variety instead comes from the 24 main stages and 8 bonus stages. Every group of three main stages shares a layout across three variants (standard, moving blocks, and slowly descending), mixing things up in an otherwise short game. It's not fully enough to not feel a bit repetitive, though, a feeling heightened by those moments of your ball not being able to hit that one last block! Worth a try if you happen to come across it, and I'm sure this is more impressive as a launch Game Boy title, but there are better versions of this concept out there nowadays.

Perhaps the most notable thing about this one is the fact that it's technically a Mario game! Mario pilots the paddle, one of the stages arranges the blocks in the shape of Mario's head, and all of the bonus stages are based on Super Mario Bros. characters. It's a neat addition to an otherwise simplistic title.

Everyone has played at least one version of Breakout at some point in their lives, and most have one they're nostalgic for. For some it's Arkanoid, or DX Ball, or the very original Breakout. For me, it's Alleyway.

I didn't have access to a lot of games growing up, and most of the ones I did were hand-me-downs for the Gameboy. One particular cartridge I treasured was a "50 games in one!", a dodgy, quite illegal knock off that contained an immense quantity of random Gameboy games. Most of them were dreadful (if they were even in English in the first place), but one I found myself always coming back to was Alleyway. Having not played it in years, I booted it up today and finished it in one sitting. Hoo boy.

Yeah it's bad. No amount of nostalgia can disguise that fact from me. Even in the context of 1989, of it being a barebones port of one of the most basic games created, it's bad. For starters, there is almost no music. Instead, your aural soundscape is entirely made up of grating beeps and clinks. Worse than that though is how threadbare the game is. There are a grand total of 24 stages, however, there are really only 8 unique levels, each one repeated twice. Once the blocks move across the screen horizontally, then again vertically. Pitiful. There are bonus stages, but these are essentially just little Mario-adjacent pictures you look at for a minute before moving on.

Which brings me on to the theming. Alleyway was released in that period where Nintendo were really just slapping the cheeky plumber's face on anything and everything. This might be the most insulting example though, as Mario's presence is comprised of a little animation at the very start of the game and his face being in the bottom right corner of the screen for the rest of it. That's it. It's insulting and an omen of how overused the Mario characters would go on to become.

It may be a small detail, but it's symptomatic of a game that feels like it was farted out without any passion or love. No powerups, no interesting blocks, no music, no animations, no bonus modes, nothing. Nothing at all to brighten up what is ultimately a very dull concept for a game. Arkanoid had been out for three years before Alleyway was spaffed on to the Gameboy, so there's no excuse for it to be such a barebones execution of the Breakout formula.

I still feel some level of nostalgia for Alleyway, even after revisiting it. Perhaps it sounds like I hate the game, but the fact I've given it two stars rather than the one it deserves shows that I still feel an urge to be lenient towards it. No, I couldn't hate Alleyway, but the way I feel about it now is like I'd just found out a beloved childhood pet had actually given me leprosy and I'd forgotten it until now. I still love it, but god do I never want to look at it again.

A simple Breakout clone, where you go through 24 stages and 8 bonus stages.
It's not anything to write home about, and it can get a bit repetitive after a while, so I'd recommend playing this game in short bursts, which is probably what the devs intended, considering its arcade-like structure.

The lack of music makes it kinda empty, not gonna lie. I wish they had gone the Dr. Mario or Tetris route, where they give the option of selecting from a few songs before you start the game.

Alleyway is an alright game. Play it if you're curious.

I am sure there are compliments you could offer Alleyway, like that it's a good time waster, or that it's a solid Breakout clone, or that the fact that you control Mario in a weird little ship is cute flavor, or that the bonus stages actually offer a bit of solid fun. None of that would distract from the fact that most Game & Watch titles require more player interaction and end up more engaging. The additions made to the Breakout formula only seem there to lengthen the game and test the technical capabilities of the Game Boy, with each stage having three variants - a static version, a version that screen wraps while scrolling, and a version that slowly encroaches on the player. You would think that the third of these would add some sort of time limit or pressure, but no, all blocks disappear within close enough proximity to the paddle, meaning that the levels sort of just double up on themselves to be slightly less than twice as long rather than any sort of "ramping up". Alleyway is a thoroughly mindless excursion that screams "Game Boy tech demo", carried by the fact that the bonus stages are cute and Breakout is inherently fun... to an extent. The amount of time Arkanoid-likes play themselves can get excruciating at times, and the different layouts of Alleyway love to present those possibilities. It is functional, I have gained nothing from it.

Alleyway, or アレイウェイ, was developed by Intelligent Systems and distributed by Nintendo itself, released back in 1989.

The game is a clone of the classic "Breakout", which I believe you all know and which is often found in minigame collections of 1000 games in 1. However, Alleyway, despite being a "clone", is very well designed and thought out.

The game doesn't have a story; you control Mario, yes, Mario, although it's actually a little ship that serves as a barrier for the ball that is used to destroy the blocks. The aim here is precisely that: to break all the blocks in each level.

Speaking of stages, that's where this game stands out. Despite not having power-ups like some more recent versions of Breakout clones, Alleyway doesn't become repetitive. This is due to the care taken to maintain variety and challenge in each stage. It has 24 normal stages and 8 bonus stages that only serve to accumulate points. In each of the 24 normal levels, there is a difference; some are ordinary, in others the blocks go down over time, some blocks move, your little ship can get smaller making it harder to control, some levels get faster over time, and so on. So the game never gets boring and always keeps the player engaged until the end.

This is a perfect game for a console like the Gameboy. It's practical and quick to pick up and play in small doses on a daily basis, just by taking the console out of the bag and playing a few levels.

And that's all I had to say about Alleyway, it's very good, even in its simplicity they've managed to balance everything very well.

My rating for it is: 3 stars.