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

With thanks to Karl Kuras for highlighting, Archive.org for the scans, Codetapper and Mike Ball for information on the development.

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