Ludography
Creature Crunch cover

1996 · Adventure · Point-and-click adventure

Creature Crunch

Wesley is having a super-bad day. He's been lured into the sprawling Mansion of the evil Dr. Drod and transformed by the mad professor into a half-boy/half-creature. Then Wesley hooks up with another experiment gone wrong: Brian, a wiseguy brain floating in a jar who says he can help Wesley escape.

Released
1996
Platforms
Windows
Genres
AdventurePoint-and-click adventure
Developers
—
Publishers
—
Perspective
Side view
Themes
Science fictionComedy
Country
United States
Age ratings
ESRB T
Time to beat
3hwith extras

About

Creature Crunch is a 1996 animated point-and-click adventure game released primarily for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 systems. It was developed by Class6 Interactive, a game-focused division of Class6 Entertainment. It received funding from the international group of investors called TechToons.

In the game, the player controls Wesley, a boy who is transformed into a human-monster hybrid by a mad scientist. Wesley has to escape the scientist's mansion, exploring its rooms and eating items which will help him defeat each room's guardians.

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game is essentially about clicking on objects. A vast number of them will answer to a click with a gag, including visual-based and dialogue-based gags. Some will trigger a different response when clicked a second or third time.

In order to escape, the player must navigate several unique rooms while solving puzzles, which involve defeating multiple guardians. For that purpose, Wesley picks up special objects spread around the mansion and keeps them inside his underwear. When in the presence of a guardian, selecting the correct object will allow the protagonist to eat it. By doing that, Wesley will transform into a deadly weapon and the respective guardian will be destroyed.

Story

Wesley (voiced by Martin Short) is riding a bike during a rainstorm and stops by an old Gothic mansion after getting a flat tire, to ask to use a phone. When he rings the doorbell, a pair of monstrous arms grab him and throw him under the welcome mat, where a trapdoor is located. A slide leads him to a secret lab, where he meets Dr. Drod.

Drod is a mad, evil scientist who inhabits the mansion and plans to turn Wesley into a monster, the final one of his army, with the intent to wreak havoc on the world. The experiment goes wrong when Drod makes a mistake, killing him in the process. Wesley becomes a half-monster, strong enough to break free from the trap.

Development

Martin Short voiced Wesley and Dr. Drod, while Eugene Levy voiced Brian, the Kitchen Toast and several other characters. In total, they performed for almost 40 characters. The work was done in a single session. According to Short, they had a script to follow, but were also allowed to improvise significantly.

The entire game contains over 20,000 distinct drawings. The design and animation were done by John and Ted Mathot, who had previously worked on The Ren & Stimpy Show. The script was made by Ken Segal. The soundtrack was composed by Bill Ungerman.

Reception

Bob Strauss, on Entertainment Weekly, described Creature Crunch as "passably enjoyable", and considered some of its humor to be too childish (highlighting fart jokes in a certain room). He mentioned the game's artwork reminded him of John Kricfalusi's artstyle. Meanwhile, Just Adventure's fixr was impressed by the sheer amount of interactable objects and gags, which he called "the best part of this game". He highlighted the involvement needed from the player in order to properly enjoy the game's humor, and praised it as the "best element of Creature Crunch".

Gordon Aplin, writing for metzomagic.com, defined the game's humor as "good stuff for the very young", with some funny moments for the older players. He also complimented the cartoon animation and the voice acting. On the other hand, he criticized the gameplay's reliance on clicking objects multiple times, claiming that "a lot of repetition is necessary to progress", as well as the lack of subtitles. According to him, the game was too short, lacked challenge and felt more well-suited for very young players.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Windows31 December 1996Worldwide

Games like this

Collections1 collection

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.