A port of The Addams Family
The Addams Family for Game Boy is a side-scrolling platformer based on the movie of the same name. The player takes the role of Gomez who searches for his missing family members. To find them he has to explore six different parts of the mansion, e.g. the forest or the graveyard, which are basic platform levels: the player moves from left to right while jumping a lot and avoiding enemies. In contrast to the other versions of the game he has weapons to his disposal, e.g. a throwing knife. Other differences are a unique level design and another health system: Gomez has five hearts which practically act like a life meter because every hit only takes away a part of a heart.
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I played The Addams Family for 30 minutes.
My reason for playing this was to write an article for GBSC on how to increase game feel/juice by improving Player Character Animation State Designs. The full article can we read via my website (see PROFILE).
The Addams Family was developed and published for the Game Boy in 1992 by Ocean Software. Gomez Addams must navigate his way through the Addams Mansion and surrounding property in order to locate and save his family members from Abigail Craven, the Judge, and the family attorney Tully Alford, all of whom are after the famous Addams fortune.
Acting as a tie-in to the 1991 film, the original concept was that of a puzzle game, however the production took a sharp turn in an attempt to capitalize on the platformer boom of the early 90s when Ocean Software was asked to adapt the film for the SNES in addition to the NES and Game Boy.
As with many tie-ins, time is of the essence if profits are to be maximized, and games that are supposed to go along with a film’s release tend not to be delayed. Even after a monumental shift in production such as changing the very genre of the game mid-development, The Addams Family for both the Game Boy and the NES were not exceptions in this case. It should therefore come as no surprise that this title sports some considerable design issues due to a rushed development timeline.
My reason for playing this was to write an article for GBSC on how to increase game feel/juice by improving Player Character Animation State Designs. The full article can we read via my website (see PROFILE).
The Addams Family was developed and published for the Game Boy in 1992 by Ocean Software. Gomez Addams must navigate his way through the Addams Mansion and surrounding property in order to locate and save his family members from Abigail Craven, the Judge, and the family attorney Tully Alford, all of whom are after the famous Addams fortune.
Acting as a tie-in to the 1991 film, the original concept was that of a puzzle game, however the production took a sharp turn in an attempt to capitalize on the platformer boom of the early 90s when Ocean Software was asked to adapt the film for the SNES in addition to the NES and Game Boy.
As with many tie-ins, time is of the essence if profits are to be maximized, and games that are supposed to go along with a film’s release tend not to be delayed. Even after a monumental shift in production such as changing the very genre of the game mid-development, The Addams Family for both the Game Boy and the NES were not exceptions in this case. It should therefore come as no surprise that this title sports some considerable design issues due to a rushed development timeline.
I remember how I struggled with this one as a kid. The controls were a bit clunky, and all in all, it was nothing special.