Toonstruck

Toonstruck is a point-and-click adventure game where the player controls Drew Blanc, accompanied by his cartoon sidekick Flux. The game uses a "Bottomless Bag" as an inventory icon, and the mouse pointer, represented by an animated white-gloved hand, is context-sensitive, changing its icon depending on what it is rolled over. Dialogue options with characters are displayed as graphical icons that represent the topic of conversation. One of the standard icons is a cube of ice (for "breaking the ice" with a character); as dialogue options are exhausted, the cube melts into a puddle of water.

The main objective of the game is to locate and collect several items to build a machine that has an opposite effect to that of the antagonist, Count Nefarious. These components are spread throughout the three kingdoms of Cutopia, Zanydu and the Malevolands. Many of the puzzles are based on object manipulation, although there are also some logic and arcade-style puzzles. For certain parts, the player must use the abilities of Flux as a cartoon character to advance.

Animator Drew Blanc is the original creator of the Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun Show, which has been a ten-year success for his company. In reality, the many cute talking rabbits that star in the show sicken him. His self-revered creation Flux Wildly, a wise-talking small purple character, has been denied the chance of starring in his own show. Drew's boss Sam Schmaltz sets him the task of designing more bunnies to co-star in the show by the next morning.

However, the depressed animator nods off, suffering from acute artist's block. He wakes in the night to find his television switched on, announcing the Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun Show. Drew is mysteriously drawn into the TV screen and transported to a cartoon world populated by his own creations, among many other cartoon characters. He befriends Flux Wildly and discovers that this fictional paradise is being ravaged by a ruthless new character named Count Nefarious with a weapon of evil called the Malevolator, a flying saucer which mutates the idyllic landscape and its inhabitants into dark and twisted counterparts.

Toonstruck was published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment and developed by Virgin's internal development studio Burst, based in Irvine, California and headlined by Chris Yates, a veteran of Westwood Studios, and Neil Young, who worked at Probe. After David Perry and his associates left Virgin in 1993, the company struggled with internal development and hired Yates and Young to lead this division. In an interview by Edge, Yates stated that all senior producers at Burst had between "eight and ten years of experience", and that the studio was focused on having quality tools and technology to develop products with high production values.

Development of the game began in October 1993, and finished in November 1996. Virgin Interactive invested much money in the project, and aimed at impressing audiences with high production values. "So much of the game was handled like a full-scale movie production", said artist John Pimpiano, who was originally tasked with doing background art for the game, but became involved with other realms of production such as character development, storyboarding, color styling and marketing promos, among others. The studio was inspired to take CD-ROM technology "even further" after the success of Virgin's The 7th Guest, and to make the game "as cinematic as possible".

Toonstruck received mostly positive reviews. Brett Atwood of Billboard wrote that despite the game being "far from unique," it is "filled with plenty of challenging puzzles and cool cartoons". Entertainment Weekly's Gary Eng Walk rated the game an A−, praising the level of difficulty and puzzles while noting that the controls "are sometimes clunky". Computer and Video Games gave Toonstruck a 4 out of 5, calling it "the best point-and-click adventure for a long time".

In its review, CVG compared the game favorably to LucasArts adventures games such as Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island, and praised the "professional" cutscenes, controls and difficulty curve. Petra Schlunk of Computer Gaming World gave the game a 5 out of 5, praising the story, characters, voice work and puzzles. The Irish Times' Garrett Rowe called Toonstruck a "superb example of how to put together games of this nature", rating its graphics 90%, its sound 84% and the gameplay 93%.