Game:

Puggsy (1993)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 48:17

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Puggsy is a platform game developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Psygnosis in 1993 for the Sega Mega Drive, Sega Mega-CD and Commodore Amiga computers. In the US, the Mega Drive and Mega-CD versions were released on the first day of Winter CES 1994; January 6th.

The game was notable at the time of release for having an unusual physics system which the manual calls "Total Object Interaction", in which Puggsy can use various objects for aiding him in battle, and for helping him solve puzzles to proceed.

The game follows the character, Puggsy, an orange alien which has been marooned on an alien planet and got his spaceship stolen by its inhabitants.

Now he ventures into the island, searching for the whereabouts of his spaceship.

The D-Pad is used to move around. The C button jumps; while in mid-air, the player can press and hold Down to stomp on enemies. To pick up an item, press B;to drop it, press again, also, holding up or any diagonally upward direction then pressing B will throw the item upwards. A is used to interact with the item Puggsy is holding (e.g. while holding a shield, press A to gain invincibility). Multiple items can be stacked on top of each other and carried.

The general goal of each level is to reach the exit as directed by the arrow on the HUD, though in most cases, the player will need to solve puzzles and overcome hazards using whatever objects they encounter during a level, such as a key to open locked doors, a gun to shoot enemies with, water pistols to douse flames. Just about every type of item can be carried into the goal for bonus points and extra lives. Some levels may have alternate exits that will lead the player to secret levels should they be able to find them. Certain levels will end in boss fights, in which the player needs to find a solution in order to inflict damage to a boss.

In addition to the main game, there is also a Junior mode which presents the player with a short five-level game that helps the player get accustomed to the game's mechanics. The levels in this mode are simpler versions of the levels played in the main game.

The Puggsy character originally came from a Commodore Amiga demo named "Puggs in Space", which proved to be so successful that an entire game was made out of it.

A Super NES version of the game was planned, but cancelled, and sequels were supposedly in the works before being axed too. According to designer and programmer Jon Burton, the SNES version was completed, but the home console market crashed before release due to a flood of publishers trying to get a slice of the market which led to oversaturation, and as a result the Mega Drive version of this game and Wiz 'n' Liz had very poor sales. As such, publisher Psygnosis quickly dropped their plans to release SNES ports of those games. However, SNES conversions of some of the music tracks would be repurposed for the Mega-CD version.

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