Game 24: Adventure Island

Adventure Island has a long and storied history, and is almost as synonymous with the name Hudson as Bomberman is.

I have no idea about any of that, of course. This is the first time I've played an Adventure Island game, although a source tells me that this won't be the last one I play.

To be clear, there's a sequel on the Game Boy, and my source is named Looking At A List Of Files.

In any case, I think that it's important that we look at Adventure Island as a historic game before we just jump in to me saying "oh look I played a game, blah blah blah"

Actually let's skip all that. I'm just going to tell you why this game is super, super weird.

Game 23: The Addams Family - Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt

I know what you're thinking. And really, I'm very embarrassed for you.

Anyway, here's another Addams Family game.

I'm not going to tell you that this game is terrible (even though it is), because that sort of negativity never does anyone good, plus we've already covered this ground, haven't we?

Instead, I'm going to tell you why this game is a masterful work of horror.

Of course, I'll be ignoring many things to get to this point, such as intentionality, quality, and most of the game itself. But it will all be worth it, trust me.

But first, some research. Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt is the sequel to the previous Addam's Family game developed by Ocean. It was released simultaneously for the NES, SNES, and Game Boy, back when Nintendo basically owned everything. The NES and SNES versions of this game were also developed by Ocean and were meant to be a more linear, kid-friendly version of the first Addam's Family game.

The Game Boy version was not made by Ocean, but was instead ported by Enigma Variations. As far as I can tell, Enigma Variations' history involves porting a bunch of stuff and then going bankrupt.

Enigma Variations clearly saw the colorful, sensible versions of the game and said "Hey, how about instead of a straight port we turn the game into a non-Euclidian descent into madness?"