4 to Save Toon Land
One of PPP Team’s half-completed experiments, 4 to Save Toon Land is one of the more ambitious Game-Maker games. There are at least two elements that stand out: its approach to storytelling, and its multifaceted approach to level design.
On the former count, the game starts off with a cursor that the player can scroll across a lushly illustrated backdrop. As the player scrolls, the images and some accompanying captions gradually paint the scenario. Houses begin to burn, malevolent figures loom, and plight is established.
Eventually the player is supplied a choice of four characters, each with unique abilities and dimensions. Apparently the main reason they abandoned the game was the headache of accounting for four separate perspectives when designing the levels. What they did finish, however, they composed very well. You find passages that tall characters simply can’t fit through, blocks that only some characters can break, and various other tricks to ensure that each character can wind its own path and find its own secrets.
If you can imagine a sequel to Clash at Demonhead produced for the Sega Genesis, maybe around the same time as Kid Chameleon and Alisia Dragoon, that’s sort of the game’s tone. If it were finished, 4 to Save Toon Land might have been the best thing ever done with Game-Maker. As it stands, it’s a neat demonstration of how much potential still lays untapped even in such a limited framework.
Contents
Story
Everything was calm in Toon Land ...
But not for long.
For the cruel Machiavelik has begun to sow terror.
4 heroes have been chosen for this mission:
- Tiny
- Gan
- Skott
- Mol
Instructions
- F2 Info board
- F3 Toggle sound
- F4 Toggle music
- F5 Save a game
- F6 Load a ame
- F8 Use joystick
- F9 Calibrate joystick
- Keypad to make move your hero
- /*-+ to use your weapon
- A-G for the sound test !!
Credits
- Piet Martin : Level design, game concept and storytelling
- Pype Martin : Character design for Gan/Futureboy and Mol (a cameo from Badman II) plus some tiles (reused from Badman II)
- Atreide Concepts/Kalisto : Tiny character and additional tiles, ripped from Fury of the Furries
- Greg Pogo : Skott character design
- Pierrick Hansen : Voice actor.
Links
