The Addam's Family on the NES

While I have a lot of love for the blocky charm and limited colour palettes of earlier games and computer consoles like the Atari 2600 and the Commodore 64, playing a NES game directly after being immersed in that world feels like an insanely beautiful experience.

Pugsley alert!

I've been playing The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt, a NES game released in 1992, and in this we can see a real perfection of pixel art detail. The inclusion of sprite outlines alone does so much heavy lifting in terms of creating a really detailed look that those earlier eras lacked. Pugsley is real in this game. He is a real man. I can tell because of his outline.

There was a more colourful, detailed, and more fun SNES version of the game released with the NES and Game Boy versions, but I love the high-contrast look of the NES game. Pugsley is often set against pitch black backgrounds that really enhance the atmosphere. There's also a gorgeous, sinister tree to be seen.

I love him.

As far as the gameplay goes, Pugsley sadly has only two hearts. He can get hit precisely twice, and the second time: he's dead. It's really sad, and makes the game instantly excruciating. In the SNES game, you have higher base health, and arenas are also designed more intuitively. In this version, you're scrambling around, lost in the dark, knowing you're most definitely about to die. You might imagine that would create a nice frightening Addams Family atmosphere, but it doesn't. It's just very tiring.

Weird green thing alert!

Nevertheless, the game is, in its own way, quite beautiful. Pugsley's face when he dies is this horrible, warped expression. His mouth and eyes become huge empty holes. It's amazing. 

In the SNES version of the game, Pugsley employs a Dennis the Menace style grin, because he knows he can get what he wants - cash money - but in the NES game, Pugsley is innocently joyful as he traverses the stark blackness around him. The two games convey two remarkably unconnected Pugsleys. And I have to admit, I prefer the hapless, easily killed, certifiably pink Pugsley.

He's nasty.

And so, perhaps, does his mother.