Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad

This article is about the Amiga game. For the console game, see Mr. Nutz

Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad
Front cover of Mr. Nutz Hoppin' Mad
Developer(s)	Neon Studios, Kaiko
Publisher(s)	Ocean
Designer(s)	Peter Thierolf
Composer(s)	Rudolf Stember
Platform(s)	Amiga 500, Amiga 600, Mega Drive/Genesis (unpublished)
Release date(s)	Amiga EU 1994 Mega Drive/Genesis EU Cancelled
Genre(s)	Side-scrolling, 2D platform
Mode(s)	Single-player
Media/distribution	3 floppy disks
System requirements 1Mb of RAM

Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad gameplay

Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad is a side scrolling, 2D platformer video game published by Ocean Software for the Amiga and first released in 1994.

The player controls the one player character, Mr. Nutz who is an Anthropomorphic red squirrel wearing shoes, gloves and a cap, who must stop chickens from outer space that are trying to take over the world. The game shares similarities with other platformers of the same time, jumping is the main technique used in the game to navigate platforms and defeat or avoid most enemies. There is an overworld map in overhead view in which a small amount of gameplay takes place, and from which the player selects which levels to play. Most gameplay takes place within the levels which are the common 2D platform view.

Development

The game started out as Timet: the Flying Squirrel by a group of people who later formed company NEON. When selling the game to Ocean the main character was replaced with the already existing character Mr. Nutz and the game was renamed. Before that the player character sprite was a slimmer flying squirrel, which was changed to a fluffier red squirrel but all of the level and enemy design remained as it was before. Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad was developed by Neon Studios and published in Europe by Ocean for the Amiga 500 and Amiga 600 in 1994.

Ocean had previously released a game on multiple consoles under the shorter name of Mr. Nutz, featuring the same titular character but with different, slower and more linear gameplay, unrelated levels and enemies, another story, and the absence of a overworld map to select the levels, with only a linear mini-map to follow the course of action instead.

Sometime after its original Amiga releases, the Neon Studios game was eventually stated to be ported to the Sega Mega Drive and released in Europe in 1995 as Mr. Nutz 2 ^{[1] [2]}, acting as a sequel of the console Mr Nutz game which had already been released in this particular system. However, despite being fully completed by the developer and even tested by European press reviewers, the Mega Drive port of Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad was never published.

References

1. ^ Magazine article 1
2. ^ Magazine article 2