Games That Weren't^®

1994 Millenium

Platform: SEGA Mega Drive, Amiga 1200, Amiga CD32

I remember watching old episodes of Mr. Magoo as a kid, a hapless short-sighted old man who always seems to get into comical trouble, but everything always has a way of working itself out at the last minute. Millenium felt there was a game in the character and so obtained the licence for a series of games in 1994.

In the game, you control the hero in various places where disasters and accidents are abound, with the aim of course to avoid them. Now the interesting bit is that some previews shown in magazine suggest that the game was going to be controlled with a mouse. Though Australian magazine MegaZone revealed that the game was due also for the SEGA Mega Drive.

The idea of the game was that you would use various objects to trigger events to try and save Mr Magoo. One magazine described the game as a sort of cross between Lemmings and Incredible Machine, where you have to interact with objects at lightening speed.

Another magazine had a bit of the storyline:

“In brief: Magoo Town is out of control, buildings are burning, cats are hanging in trees, the clowns have disappeared from the circus, small children have lost their balloons, the toy factory is almost in ruins. And the only one who can change that is Mr. Magoo. Chaos perfect! In this entertaining game you have to literally “throw a stick between Magoo’s legs.” If the master of chaos hits it, something extraordinary will happen.”

Little else is known at this stage about the game and how far it got, though the screenshots shown in magazines suggest it was fairly advance.

There was also an interview with the late Richard Joseph, who confirmed he was working on the music and had the following to say:

“Mr Magoo is a very interesting project. The soundtrack is in the 1930s style and this is the type of music that inspires me the most, I really enjoy writing it!”

Who else worked on the game, and could anything of it be found? Thanks to Codetapper (see comments), we learn that the developer was Mike Ball for the Amiga version and he said this back in 2013:

“Unfortunately I didn’t keep anything of the Magoo project. It was one of those projects that never really made it past the demo stage before it was put on ice. The control system, whilst original, didn’t really work as well as we wanted it to do. To be honest, I really don’t remember much about it now!”

A huge shame – so attention may well turn to any potential Mega Drive development or the artist involved to see if anything can be saved. What would be fantastic is if any of Richard’s music could be recovered as well as something of the game itself.

Thanks to Anonymous Contributor, we learn via an article in The One magazine (Issue 68, May 1994) that Ian Saunter was the project manager + designer, Mike Ball was the developer + designer, Mark Rafter was art director + designer, Marcus Broome an artist and designer and Alan Brand another artist too. Finally, Richard Joseph was confirmed as musician. Hopefully we’ll be able to get hold of one of the artists to see if anything can be saved.

Anonymous Contributor also highlighted a key bit in the description of the game dynamics:

“‘You don’t actually control Magoo, but the objects and scenery around him,’ explains Mike. ‘The problem here is that you’ve actually got to get Magoo to accomplish a task, but you can’t really use him, so you’ve got to get something else to make Magoo complete the puzzle, indirectly, as it were.’

Within the game this means that the player will take control of objects in Magoo’s world, causing him to notice them and interact accordingly. If you ‘become’ a chair, Magoo will more than likely sit on you. If you’ve got a dodgy spring, a touch of the fire button will send Magoo flying. ‘Become’ a washing line, and Magoo will grab onto you – etc, etc.

‘We created this control method because it’s new, it’s original and also because it fits Magoo so well. Unfortunately, design has been the biggest headache with Magoo because it’s so difficult thinking up really good puzzles for him to solve.'”

So as Anonymous Contributor suggests to us, perhaps it was a bit too ambitious? “Early attempts at AI controlled main characters often fell through due to the sheer amount of programming needed to make things work, especially within limited hardware. One can see where The Incredible Machine analogy came from, though – although that particular protagonist operates purely within the laws of physics.” they noted.

If you know anything more about the development, please do get in touch.

With thanks to Karl Kuras for highlighting, Archive.org and Stephen Stuttard for the scans, Anonymous Contributor for additional info and scans, Codetapper and Mike Ball for information on the development.

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