Zoo Keeper

Zoo Keeper is a maze-style arcade game published by Taito, in which you play a harried zookeeper trying to stop the animals from escaping their enclosure. The core hook is that you build and repair the walls of the pen by dropping bricks along the perimeter as you run around it, all while the creatures inside are constantly trying to break through the barriers you've just erected.

Layered on top of that is a rescue subplot — your captured girlfriend sits at the top of the screen, and clearing stages advances the story between varied bonus rounds. It's very much a product of the early-80s arcade sensibility, with simple single-screen action, escalating speed and score-chasing as its main appeal. Judged today it's a minor but likeable curio; the wall-building mechanic sets it apart from the era's countless straight maze-runners, even if it never reached the fame of Taito's bigger hits.