Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day

Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day
Developer(s)	Viacom New Media
Publisher(s)	Viacom New Media
Producer(s)	Dave Marsh
Designer(s)	Karl Roelofs Brian Babendererde Alisa Kober Dave Marsh Boris Remus Tom Zehner Roman Scharnberg Karl Roelofs Donna Friedman
Programmer(s)	Roman Scharnberg Boris Remus
Artist(s)	Jared Prano Tony Sherman Brian Babenderede Tom Zehner Alisa Kober
Composer(s)	Mark Miller
Platform(s)	Super NES
Release	NA: April 1994
Genre(s)	2D action platformer
Mode(s)	Single-player

Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day is a puzzle-platform game released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It is based on the Nickelodeon series Rocko's Modern Life (1993–1996) and is the first project of Viacom New Media, the interactive entertainment software division of Viacom International, which owned Nickelodeon. There are four levels, each consisting of four sections, that involve Spunky distracted by an object and moves around looking for it, oblivious to the dangers around him. The player acts as Rocko, who alters the level environment by methods such as moving platforms, getting Spunky onto rifts, and fighting enemies to keep his dog safe.

Produced by Dave Marsh, Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day was developed for nearly 12 months during the show's creations, and the only source material to reference were rough sketches sent by artists working on the series. Viacom New Media published the game in North America in April 1994 to generally favorable reviews from professional critics. Praise went towards the addictiveness, challenge, and presentation, particularly its reflection of the series. However, some reviewers also suggested the difficulty would be too much for the title's young target demographic and was artificially increased by the difficult and unresponsive controls.

Gameplay[]

The beach level of Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day. Rocko uses the level environment to move Spunky to safe areas. In this case, he jumps on the chair to spring spunky onto the higher deck.

Spunky's Dangerous Day is a puzzle-platform game similar to Lemmings (1991), Mario & Wario (1993) and The Lost Vikings (1993).^[1][2] There are four levels, each with four sections: a beach, a junkyard, a backyard, and a Laundromat.^[3] In each section, the player, as Rocko, affects the level environment to protect his dog Spunky, who gets distracted by objects such as mops, frisbees, and ice cream vendors and goes after them without any awareness of the hazards around him.^[4][1] In the first level, for example, Rocko uses rafts to traverse Spunky across water, jumps on lawn chairs and pulley system knobs to get Spunky to higher platforms, and protects Spunky from crabs and sea gulls.^[3] Difficulty modes include easy and hard. On easy, the player, when pausing the game, can scroll through the entire map, whereas on hard, they only have a small map to work with.^[4]

Rocko can jump, run, duck, punch, perform a quick succession of kicks, swipe his tail at enemies, and pick up objects, including Spunky, which the action changes the dog's walking direction.^[5][2][4] Power-ups for Spunky include food items, like a Beef Heart, that increase Spunky's health, a balloon that inflates Spunky for Rocko to kick him all over the level, bones that temporarily halt Spunky, shields that make Spunky invincible for a period of time, chili peppers that speed him up, green grunge that slows him down, and extra lives.^[2][5][4][1] For Rocko, there are invincibility shields as well as lighting icons that increase his speed and springs that make him jump higher.^[5] Some items are in areas too small for Rocko to enter, meaning Spunky has to obtain them.^[4] There are red fire hydrants that serve as checkpoints, as well as passwords, and a level ends when Spunky gets to a golden fire hydrant.^[1][2]

Development and release[]

Rocko's Modern Day: Spunky's Dangerous Day was the first project of Castro Valley, California-based Viacom New Media, the interactive entertainment software division of Viacom International.^[6] Their intention was to produce products with licenses of shows airing on MTV and Nickelodeon, two networks owned by Viacom.^[6]

Lasting shy of 12 months, development of Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Days began before the formation of Viacom New Media and during the creation of the TV series. The team had no animations of the characters to refer to and had to base the game's graphics on concept sketches sent to them by the show's animators.^[6] Producer Dave Marsh led a team of background artists Jared Prano, Tony Sherman and Brian Babenderede, animators Tom Zehner, Jarod Pranno and Alisa Kober, and programmers Boris Remus and Roman Scharnberg.^[6] All developed the project in an improvisational manner, especially with the backgrounds.^[6] Babendererde, Kober, Marsh, Remus, Zehner, and Scharnberg also did the design, as well as Karl Roelofs and Nickelodeon product manager Donna Friedman.^[7] Stephen Gass was credited as creative director, and Michele Jabloner as creative consultant.^[7] With preview pieces in magazines such as GamePro and Game Players, the game was released by Viacom New Media in April 1994 in North America.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Reception[]

Critics called Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day a promising and strong first effort from Viacom New Media, and the game hyped them for the developer's later projects, such as Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity (1995).^[5][3][2] Critics favorably described Spunky's Dangerous Day as addicting and challenging, suggesting players will not put it down within a day.^[a] Electronic Games labeled the puzzles as "clever" and "thoughtfully designed".^[5] However, they argued its difficulty as probably too much for its young target demographic.^{[12][4][1][2]} Electronic Gaming Monthly called it "a challenge for even the best of players", with puzzles "tricky" and "downright brutal" in the later sections.^[12] GamePro journalist Lawrence of Arcadia wrote in that instances where Rocko has to spring Spunky, miscalculating can result in instance death.^[4]

A major criticism was the controls, which were generally criticized as difficult, unresponsive, and artificially increasing the difficulty.^[12][1][14] Reviewers cited examples of imprecise jumps, slippery walking, and the fact that pick-ups of Sparky only works sometimes.^{[12][4][1][14]} Joe D. of GameFan, more forgivingly, wrote that the controls only took a little bit of time to get used to, although acknowledged "Rocko seems to float a bit at first".^[3] Disappointment was also expressed towards the small amount of stages.^[1][2]

The game's most praised aspect was its presentation.^[14] Critics praised how the visuals, such as the cutscenes and characters, and the digitized voice clips reflected the aesthetic of the series.^{[5][12][4][9]} Fish and GamePro's Lawrence of Arcadia highlighted the exaggeration in the movements, facial expressions, and look of the characters, and Joe D. noted its "bright colors, great artwork, good animation and nice multi-scrolling backgrounds".^[3][4][1] VideoGames and Computer Entertainment writer Zach Meston was heartwarmed by the "colorful and disgustingly cute" graphics, citing an animation where Spunky licks Rocko's face.^[2] He did, however, find most of the sound effects and music bland, save Spunky's death yelp.^[2]

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