The Addams Family (video game)

The Addams Family's lawyer, Tully Alford, has taken control of their Gothic mansion and imprisoned Morticia Addams, Pugsley Addams, Wednesday Addams, Granny and Uncle Fester. The player controls Gomez Addams as he explores the various rooms in the mansion, locating items and battling monsters, until he has located all of the lost family members. Gomez cannot save Morticia until the rest of the family is rescued.

Players control Gomez Addams and play through various locations of the mansion.

The game follows the Addams Family father and husband, Gomez Addams, as he attempts to save the members of his family who have been kidnapped. They have been stowed away in various locations in the mansion and are protected by a boss of some sort. The manservant Lurch and the severed hand Thing are the only characters not to be kidnapped. Thing will provide hints on gameplay whenever Gomez finds one of his red boxes marked with an 'A' for 'Addams'.

Gomez starts outside the front door of the mansion. Inside the house, Gomez can move from level to level in basically any order. The player will soon discover that the mansion is full of secrets, hidden passageways and side levels, and bosses (for the purpose of increasing Gomez's health).

Gomez dispatches enemies by simply jumping on their heads (similar to the Super Mario games). He can also find objects to throw at them, such as golf balls.

The game did not have a save system but, instead, bore a password system. Through the progression of the game, the player would receive passwords, enabling him or her to start where they left off.

Reviews are mixed for the game with the Amiga and the SNES versions reaching scores of up to 95%,[4] while the versions for the NES and Game Boy received significantly lower scores.[5] It has been commented that the movie licence saves the game from becoming a "boring Mario clone".[6] Mega advised readers to "watch a tree grow or something instead".[3]

Ocean released a very similar version for the NES, Game Gear and Master System (the latter two developed by Arc Developments rather than Oceansoft).[7] It also featured Gomez Addams looking for his family in the mansion, as well as many of the same themed-locations. It was ported in 1993[7] with different graphics, different layout and less linear gameplay. For example, if the player had freed Granny, she would fix her "fog machine" to provide one of the items necessary to free Pugsley.

Two more versions of the game were developed; one for the Game Boy and another version for computer systems Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum.[7]

• The Addams Family at MobyGames