Retrospective: Toonstruck

Things get peculiarly adult in places. While most of the comedy is classic cartoon violence, and banter between Drew and Flux, every now and then it gets a bit peculiar. For instance, when the lovely idyllic farmyard barn (containing a rather frighteningly milk-obsessed cow, and elderly donkey) is replaced by an S&M chamber, the cow strapped to the wall being whipped by the sheep, shrieking out cries of pleasure, the donkey mysteriously missing and somehow some glue being manufactured. Um, children, it's time to go outside to play now. There's also a rather awkward moment when Flux cries out, "I just figured he was a total retard." Er, no thanks.

But all of this is not to mention that it's about human/cartoon interaction! Oh, happy me. I can't explain it, I can't quite capture what it is about it, but I can assure you that possibly nothing could make me happier than waking up to find that I'm in a cartoon land with cartoon lore. Or that a cartoon character has joined me in my world. Either way, ideally with the ability to travel back and forth between the two. It would be best. The game captures that, Drew accepting of his situation, although determined to get home again.

Rather sadly, there was supposed to be a sequel to Toonstruck that never happened. It's already an extremely long game, but a deal of material was cut from it intended to be used in a follow-up. The ending reflects this, the final extensive cut-scene tying up the story neatly, but also setting things up for a follow-up. But Toonstruck did not sell well. It was 1996, and the adventure bubble had violently popped. Despite a sleek interface, fantastic writing and performances, and being a genuinely good game, Toonstruck didn't succeed, and so the sequel was shelved.

More sadly, getting it working is pretty damned hard. I had to use a combination of Dosbox, alchemy, special copy-and-pasted code in frightening files, and animal sacrifices. It really doesn't like anything from XP onward (although at least with XP instead of 7 you can use Virtual Machine without Microsoft trying to charge you a million pounds). Even then I was forced to use someone else's save games to get past one puzzle that was rendered impossible by processors no longer running at 200MHz.

It's a real tragedy that no-one at the defunct Burst Games, nor the defunct Virgin Games, has ever allowed it to work with ScummVM. Although it's very possible that no one knows who actually owns it at this point to give such permission. Go Team Copyright!

It's just so bursting with character. The gorgeously camp Carecrow, the snooty footman (he's a foot, you see, which as Flux points out means a butler must look even more strange), the bulldog running a gym, and so many other brilliantly realised, animated and voiced inhabitants. You could argue that Christopher Lloyd over-acts a little. I think it works well. His only failing is a lack of energy in his voice as he delivers some lines. But otherwise there's so little to dislike.

It's a classic that stands up against LucasArts, and it's madness that it's not widely recognised as such.