At the title screen, you can choose either Road Runner or Wile E. Coyote with Left and Right on the D-Pad.
We'll be starting as the Road Runner, but we'll be playing as Wile E. Coyote later.
By entering the options menu, you can run around as your highlighted character while also toggling the music and sound effects, switching between the game's three difficulties (easy, normal and hard) and changing the functions of the A, B and C buttons. Press Down in front of a lever to change the settings.
The default functions for A, B and C are action, turbo and jump respectively. A lets you perform the "Meep Meep!" sound, while C jumps. B lets you perform a turbo boost and go even faster, assuming you have a turbo boost icon.
Left and Right let you move around (and quickly!), and Down lets you peck at the piles of yellow bird seed scattered throughout the levels to refill your health. While you cannot climb up and down the ladders (that's Wile E.'s territory), you can go up and down with the trampolines on the options menu as well as within the game's levels.
When you go past the exit sign, you'll begin the game. You'll get a screen you'll only see for a few seconds that tells you what to get and what to avoid (obviously, it's the coyote, among other things).
Clocks add ten seconds of time. Stamps give you points, and if you collect 125 of them in a level, you'll get a bonus area at the end. The red circles with the thunderbolt give you turbo boosts, which allow you to go further by pressing B (under default controls). Road Runner heads give you extra lives.
As for the crates, you'll want to stay clear away from them, because if you get too close, Wile E. Coyote will come out of them with one of a couple of ACME products equipped, such as the rocket skates or the green bat suit. You'll need to get well away from him in order to outrun him.
Buttes and Ladders
The time will be in the bottom center of the screen. You'll only start with a minute's worth of time, which isn't much time to explore the area. Your best bet is rush to the right as much as possible, grab what you can and get to the end of the section. If you run out of time, you'll lose a life and get sent back to the beginning of the section. There are two sections to every level, and when you make it through the second section, you'll head to the next level. If you have 125 stamps or more, you'll enter the bonus level after that.
Your health and lives are in the upper-left corner. If the red bar goes empty, you're losing a life and going back to the beginning of the section. If you die by either losing all your health or running out of time, you'll also lose all your turbo boosts and you'll have to replenish them again by collecting more throughout the level. (You can have up to four turbo boosts.) If you get hit, Road Runner will speed away for a second before returning.
There is an extra life up and to the left of the start.
For the first section of the stage, you'll want to stay high and keep going. You may run into Wile E. Coyote as you do this. If he runs into a wall or bonks his head on a ceiling and you happen to be near him when that happens, stamps and a clock will fly out of him. You'll want to pick these things up, especially the clock.
The red springs will bounce you away when you run into them. If you can use them to your advantage, you can give yourself a good speed boost when it counts.
Catapults can launch you further to the right if you need to get somewhere fast.
The balloons with the anvils tied to them will drop their anvils if you're under them, but if you leap off the ballons, you can use them to get power-ups and shortcuts through the level to other places.
Cannons launch you straight up when you jump into them and press C. The one I found got me to an extra life!
Watch out for the barrels near the end of the first section. Bombs will shoot out of them, and they can do quite a bit of damage.
When you reach the second section, the amount of time you ended the first one with gets tacked on to the time you start with on the second.
There are loops that you can run around in like in [i]Sonic 2[/i]. Just like in that game, just keep going forward and you'll go around the loop. The black circles spinning around inside the ground are speed boosters; run through them to go forward faster. This will let you go up some big walls.
The bonus area for Buttes and Ladders is a series of logs going down a waterfall that you will have to jump up in order to get to the top. You'll be getting some pick-ups along the way. At the beginning, you'll also see Elmer Fudd shooting at Daffy Duck. Almost all of the bonus areas will have cameos; see if you can find them all!
