Some Thoughts About 'Puggsy'

Puggsy is an obscure puzzle platformer for the Sega Mega Drive. It was released in 1993 and has since been forgotten by all but a few passionate fans; it's the very definition of a cult classic. Like with so many games, I have a history with this game, but only recently actually played it for the first time. I first heard about it when an old friend sent me a music track from it over ten years ago; then I rediscovered it much later when another friend talked about the game and how revolutionary it was. It seems like it was fate for me to try out Puggsy and see what all the fuzz is about.

Puggsy is a bit shorter than many of the games I usually cover and I want to emphasize what's unique about it, so this article might be a bit shorter than usual.

Presentation

Puggsy is a good looking game. It makes a great first impression by showing off a bit of 3D animation, which caught me completely off guard. The Genesis/Mega Drive and SNES could pull off a few polygons at most.

The game continues to impress during gameplay, with detailed sprites and backgrounds. There is a lot of variation in stages, and all of them have a distinctive colour to them. The same goes for the characters - Puggsy in particular has many frames of animation, although his design is a little strange. It's hard to say what he's even supposed to be, beyond being some kind of alien.

The bosses have the opposite problem, if you want to call Puggsy's strange design a problem; their designs are recognizable and their sprites are very detailed, but they have barely any animation at all.

Puggy's soundtrack is excellent and features many tracks of varying atmospheres. It had catchy, powerful tracks like I had come to expect from the Mega Drive after playing the Sonic games but really pleasant and atmospheric tunes as well. Here are two great examples of music from the soundtrack, so you can draw your own conclusion as well. I had actually heard these tracks before playing the game and they were a big factor in getting me to finally try it:

In short: Puggsy's presentation is great but the bosses barely have any animation, which is a shame.

Gameplay

Puggsy is an early puzzle platformer. It has the usual actions of running and jumping, but there are a few key points that make the game unique. With how common simulated physics are in games nowadays, it may not seem remarkable to a modern audience, but Puggsy is one of the first games of its kind of have such physics. Objects can bump into each other, bounce around, fall and slide - they each have unique properties like their weight and shape, which plays into puzzles.

It doesn't end with just the physics. Puggsy has the ability to grab and hold onto items. The idea of picking up items had been pioneered by earlier platformers such as Super Mario Bros. 2, but you can specifically adjust the height at which Puggsy holds items. Combine that with the physics, and you can even use an item to grab on to a ledge and push yourself up with it - a vital part of the gameplay that took me longer to understand than I'd like to admit. On top of that, many items have a specific use - guns can shoot, for example. With so many unique items with their own properties and uses, Puggsy can present you with exciting physics puzzles that no other game could make at the time. Even the physics based puzzle platformers of today usually don't have as many factors to consider.

All this does lead to Puggsy being complex and relatively slow compared to the flashy, reflex-based games it shared a console with like Sonic. Maybe that's the reason why the game never really got the success or acknowledgement it deserved; it's surprisingly ahead of its time.

As remarkable and advanced as it is, though, Puggsy is not without its faults. I won't judge it too harshly for the occasionally glitchy physics, as it is one of the first games to even have such a thing, but there are others parts of its design that can be criticized. For instance, the game is at its weakest when it tries to be more like the aforementioned flashy reflex-based games. Some stages basically require you to run a long distance or fight a lot of enemies without any real puzzle solving. In those stages, the slow and complex gameplay goes from beneficial to detrimental quite quickly. To make matters a little more confusing, you can't just jump on enemies, you have to hold down when you land on them to truly defeat them. Fortunately, stages focusing on combat or reflexes aren't too common and the vast majority of them center around puzzle solving. A same problem arises with the bosses, however; the focus shifts from puzzle solving to reflexes and timing. Particularly egregrious was the dragon boss, which required you to actually jump into it when it opens its mouth to damage it, against all common sense. The only boss that really fit the rest of the game was in the Badger Mill, as his battle was a switch puzzle.

A few minor things to note before we close this section: To prevent confusion, there's always an arrow at the top of the screen to point you to the exit, ensuring that you'll spend your time on solving the puzzle and not wasting your time figuring out where the exit even is. You can also gain power ups. The shades give you an extra hit, while the shoes give you an extra hit and allow you to move faster and jump higher. The shoes are a must-have for the stages that depend more on running and fighting enemies, making them significantly less frustrating.

In short: Aside from the occasional weak stage and bosses, Puggsy truly was a revolutionary game with its physics and puzzles. It's a shame it wasn't acknowledged for its highly advanced tech and design at the time.

Conclusion

I streamed my way through all of Puggsy and it took me about 5 hours to beat it. I loved the visuals and music from the very start but it took a while for the gameplay to "click." Once it did, though, I had a great time solving the puzzles and exploring its world and all the ways objects could interact. If you're the kind of person who enjoys puzzles or simply loves to marvel at technological achievements in retro games, give Puggsy a look.

I expressed this thought on stream, but I wonder if there's any chance at all we'll see a revival. Puggsy's credits proudly proclaim that a sequel is on the way, but we all know that never happened.

It's really quite sad, considering what a technical marvel the game is, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this weird alien potato fellow to get a Kickstarter campaign or spiritual successor of some kind. If it happens, I'll let you know and share my thoughts on that.

Thanks for reading! The lovely community on Steem has really reignited my passion for writing about games and I want to thank everyone who takes the time to read my articles, even if you're just here to skim through. If you have any thoughts on Puggsy, please let me know in the comments.