Spin Doctor was a 1993 Puzzle Game for Macintosh, in which players swung a "wand" from dot to dot on a grid. Each level was an obstacle course to navigate as you made your way past enemy wands to the goal dot. Doesn't have much to do with people who un-fact inconvenient facts.
The 1995 sequel, ClockWerx (pictured), changed the wands to clock hands and added an Excuse Plot about fixing the Master Clock of the Universe. Exclusive to Mac and PC in the West, it also received Japan-only ports to the Super Famicom, Sega Saturn, and PlayStation. In these Widget versions, you controlled a human trapped in a realm of malevolent clocks (as related through Stop Motion Cutscenes).
Still other releases included Spin Doctor Challenger (a 10-level demo bundled with Macintosh Performa computers), and Ultimate Spin Doctor (which, confusingly, was an Updated Re-release of ClockWerx). In 2009, two of the original developers brought Spin Doctor
to the iPhone.
These games provide examples of:
- Blush Sticker: The protagonist of the Japanese claymation sequences has these...and they really are an extra layer of clay stuck on top of his cheeks.
- Bullet Time: While you orbit a slowdown dot, all enemies move at half speed.
- Celebrity Endorsement: Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov "introduces ClockWerx" on both the packaging and title screen. Many players and even reviewers took this to mean that he had designed it, where in fact he had absolutely no involvement beyond the endorsement.
- Clock Punk
- Collision Damage: The slightest touch from another wand is fatal.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Enemy wands only grab dots of their own color.
- Copy Protection: Enforced in ClockWerx by trivia questions about clocks.
- Damage Discrimination: "Most objects in the game that are dangerous to you are harmless to enemy clock hands."
- Here We Go Again!: In the final claymation scene, the hero escapes the clock world and embraces his girlfriend... but neither of them notices the face of her wristwatch becoming an eyeball.
- Hollywood Acid: Green droplets that come to life and chase you.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Spin Doctor has Pre-Med, Intern, Resident, and Specialist.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: "The Truly Revolutionary Arcade Challenge!"
- Non-Indicative Name: "A death dot is perfectly safe to grab. However, you cannot switch from one death dot directly to another."
- Press X to Die: R or Esc will blow up your wand, resetting the level.
- Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!: What sets off the protagonist's troubles in the opening Super Famicom cutscene. (In the other console ports, his clock comes to life without him attacking it.)
- Save Point: Way station dots.
- Teleporters and Transporters: Hyperdots.
- Temporary Platform: Ring dots disappear when you let go of them.
- Vapor Ware: The "Levels File" option was "designed to provide future expansion of your ClockWerx game." But with neither a Level Editor nor an Expansion Pack, there was no way to make use of it.
- Video Game Tutorial
