"You have been foiled in your attempt to rescue your family.
However, you still have a chance."
—The Sega Genesis and Super NES versions' death screens.''
Numerous video games have been released based on the creepy and kooky Addams Family.
Fester's Quest
Fester's Quest is a top-down shooter based on the 60s TV show (and Blaster Master gameplay-wise). Uncle Fester is on a mission to investigate the UFO that has invaded the town the family lives in. The game was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989. The game was released by Sunsoft.
- Alien Invasion: The villains of the game are aliens who are attacking the town.
- Aliens Are Bastards: They presumably want to conquer Earth, starting with the town.
- The Cameo: The mother-brain, frog, and Crabullus bosses from Blaster Master are re-made as mooks in this game.
- Continuing is Painful: Continuing after getting a game over puts you back at the beginning of the game, although you keep all of your weapon upgrades.
- Cores-and-Turrets Boss: The final boss, the ship's computer, may qualify as this, with the core situated right behind the bottom turrets.
- Giant Spider: One appears as a Unique Enemy guarding a hot dog stand (which functions as a way to replenish your health).
- Heart Container: One is through a dead-end wall in the first white building, the other in a seemingly isolated brown one.note
- Invincibility Power-Up: Thing will sometimes give you potions that you can use whenever you so choose to become temporarily invincible.
- Missile Lock-On: How the missiles are used. Select a target, then send 'em off.
- Nuclear Candle: The light bulb, likely powered by Fester himself, can light the entire underground area.
- Power Up Letdown: Some of the Gun's power-up stages can be hard to use(especially the looping third form in the sewers). To say nothing of the power-downs that sometimes pop up.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: The invincibility potions are mistakenly called invisibility potions.
- Smart Bomb: The noose, which summons Lurch to take care of unwanted pests.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: The TNT, though it's simply laid down before exploding.
- Unique Enemy: A Giant Spider appears guarding a hot dog stand. It's not a boss, and it only appears once.
The Addams Family (1992 NES Game)
The Addams Family (NES) is a Nintendo Hard side-scrolling platform game by Ocean Software. You control Gomez Addams as he attempts to rescue his family members and reclaim his family fortune (the latter objective is actually required by the game in order to win). You'll have to have your wits about you, as you try to avoid the various perils befalling you and rescue your beloved family.
- A Winner Is You: So, you've managed to make it through your death-trap of a mansion and bypass the various bewitched enemies. You've rescued all of your various relatives, restored your lost family fortune, and saved Morticia from an evil Gomez clone (actually Tully Alford, but that's how indistinct he is in the game). How does the game celebrate all of your hard work? By announcing on a plain text screen that you've done just that! You're then treated to a "cutscene" of Gomez and Morticia 'dancing' outside the mansion to an 8-bit rendering of "The Blue Danube"... then it's a simple Game Over screen. The End!
- Cash Gate: Probably the only reason you're collecting the various bills, money bags, gemstones and other baubles in the game. You must pass through the Treasury in order to get to the final room (Gomez's Room), and you need a solid one million dollars in order to continue. Oddly enough, the door will open for any amount... you just aren't able to go through it.
- Continuing is Painful: Mostly averted here. Dying in a room or area doesn't cause you to lose your inventory, and will return you back to the starting point of that section. However, you will still lose a life.
- Corridor Cubbyhole Run: There is a section on the ice level where there are rolling snowballs on a low-ceiling corridor. And convenient alcoves Gomez can reach by jumping to avoid the snowballs.
- Dem Bones: One of the enemies is a skeleton.
- Falling Chandelier of Doom: Chandeliers can be jumped on for them to fall, crushing the enemies below.
- Giant Spider: Gomez encounters large green spiders that are after him.
- Goomba Stomp: The player can jump on enemies.
- Goomba Springboard: Jumping on enemies can be used to go higher.
- Hell Is That Noise: The sound effects in the game are lackluster at best, and you'll get used to hearing the sound effect when you take damage. But the icing on the cake is that The Addams Family theme plays throughout the entire game ad infinitum... It's far more likely you'll quit the game due to its frustrating design instead.
- Invincibility Power-Up: Thing actually fills this role here, although you must retrieve it first. Once acquired, press Select and Thing will spin around you for a limited time defeating enemies, blocking damage and preventing obstacles from knocking you out of your area. However, Thing can only be summoned three times in total.
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Nintendo Hard: This game is a crowning example of early NES game difficulty. You start out with three lives, but you have a limited health bar that can only be restored by the rare cheese pickup. Enemies and objects constantly rush at you to cause Collision Damage. The occasional Beef Gate will block off areas before you can unlock them, and they will drain your life swiftly if touched. Additionally, there are a few obstacles that won't harm you at all, but they will cause you to fall from platforms, requiring you to backtrack and retrace your step once again. - Spikes of Doom: Spikes appear as common hazard.
- Stalactite Spite: Some icicles, stalactites or even bricks in the wall wait for Gomez to be near them before they fall.
- Stock Femur Bone: Some moving platforms are just femur bones.
- Stock Money Bag: One of the score-giving items is a bag with $ symbol written on it.
- Treasure Is Bigger in Fiction: There are green gems larger than Gomez's head.
The Addams Family (SNES Game)
The SNES Addams Family, like the NES game, is a sprawler wherein Gomez must search the house and the grounds for his missing family, Wednesday, Pugsley, Granny, Fester, and Morticia. This one, however, is an entirely different game, featuring improved controls and an element of Mercy Invincibility, plus special weapons and a password system. It was later ported to the Genesis, and received a heavily pared-down reskin on NES and Game Boy as The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt, tied into the 1992 animated series.
- Anti-Frustration Features: In the hall of stairs on the first floor, there is a secret door to Pugsley's Den off to the left. This section leads to multiple 1ups that you may stock up on, as well as multiple heart refills and power ups to help you replenish after a level. This section seems to be intended take the edge off of some of the game's difficulty.
- Breakable Power-Up: The weapons and the speed shoes are lost when hit, but they count as an extra point of damage.
- Flying Face: The Wacky Scientist boss is just a head with blades spinning around it.
- The Fire Dragon boss is changed from serpentine to just a floating head in the NES Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt.
- Hat of Flight: The fez item, with a tassel propeller.
- Heart Container: Earned from three optional bosses, the big bird, the snowman, and the centipedes (or spider depending on your version).
- Law Of 100: Every 100 dollars collected is an extra life. Every 25 recovers a heart as well.
- Metroidvania: It has some elements of this genre. You can fight side bosses to gain heart containers, the Adams Family Residence has a central hub section where you may access the levels in a non-linear fashion, there are secret passages where you can find helpful power ups, and you are required to rescue most of your family members by defeating bosses so that you may progress to the final level, defeat the Final Boss, "rescue" Morticia and complete the game.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Some of your relatives will put you down for beating the bosses and/or just coming for them. That's the Addamses for you.Pugsley: But father, I was working on a new poison for Wednesday with the Wacky Scientist.
Wednesday: Hello father. Thank you for rescuing me. But honestly, I was having so much fun.
Granny: What took you so long Gomez? I was just getting very comfortable. - Shared Life-Meter: Given to the two (and then three) centipede bosses.
- Snowlem: A giant snowman is the boss in the freezer.
- Sprint Shoes: An item that makes Gomez run a lot faster—Until he's hit.
- Weaponized Ball: The golf balls, a throwing weapon.
- Wicked Witch: A stereotypical witch is the boss holding Fester captive.
The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (SNES Game)
Despite sharing a title with the NES and Game Boy releases of the SNES 'The Addams Family', this was an entirely separate game. The game is a platformer requiring Pugsley to traverse different areas of the house (in an order of the player's choosing) to retrieve items from other family members. The aesthetic of the game, like the NES and Game Boy releases of the same name, was based on the animated series. The game was developed by Ocean and Enigma Variations Ltd. Unlike the other SNES platformer, it lacked a password feature, making an already difficult game even harder.
- Continuing is Painful: The game has unlimited continues, but using one makes subsequent attempts much harder because all items except for health hearts NEVER respawn if you've already gotten them, thus any extra lives you've gotten beyond what you start with upon continuing can not be replenished. And because the game has no passwords, you have no choice but to endure it.
- Another example relates to invisible platforms that are marked by money pickups. Get the money and then game over? Have fun finding those platforms again without getting hurt, especially during one sequence in the Icebox area where it's required to progress.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: Finishing the game on any difficulty below Hard will result in the ending text telling you to beat the game on Hard. Keep in mind Hard mode caps you at ONE health for the entire game, which is already absurdly difficult to begin with.
- Interface Screw: The castle level has a limited view range because it's actually Granny following your progress through her crystal ball.
- The basement level is dark, except for the light that surrounds Pugsley.
- Macro Zone: Pugsley is shrunk down for the laboratory stage.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The final stage, inside the icebox.
