Whack-a-Monty

Whack-a-Monty is an Action minigame found in New Super Mario Bros., where the player must tap Monty Moles with the stylus to defeat them, mirroring the popular real-life arcade game.

Gameplay
The minigame takes place on a 5×4 grid, where Monty Moles and Luigis come out of holes and quickly hide back in them. Each Monty Mole is worth one point if whacked. However, the player should be careful that Luigis sometimes pop out. If Luigi is hit, the player loses three points. The player must rack up as many points as possible within the 30-second time limit.

In the multiplayer version, up to four players can compete, and whoever has the most points wins. Unlike in single-player mode, the points can go below zero. Multiplayer mode also has adjustable difficulty. The Easy difficulty has no Luigis, the Normal difficulty has some Luigis, and the Hard difficulty has many quickly moving Luigis.

In-game instructions

 * Single player: "Whack Monty Mole whenever he pops out of a hole! WHACKITY WHACK!!! You'll lose points if you hit poor Luigi by mistake. Be careful! How many Monty Moles can you whack?"
 * Multiplayer: "Whack Monty Mole whenever he pops out of a hole! WHACKITY WHACK!!! You'll lose points if you hit poor Luigi by mistake, so be careful! How many Monty Moles can you whack?"

Trivia

 * The music that plays during this minigame is the same music that plays during the minigame Coincentration from Super Mario 64 DS, which in turn is based on the Underground Theme from the original Super Mario Bros.
 * This minigame also makes an appearance in volume 36 of Super Mario-kun, in which Mario can be seen whacking the Monty Moles by his house; however, he accidentally whacks Luigi in the process.

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