To think that Quackshot is just another game based on a Disney and Indiana Jones license is a mistake. Its non-linear development, its inspiration from the classic Carl Banks comic strips, the participation of AM7 and the presence of director Emirin make it a video game loaded with great ideas and of great value.
Almost 30 years later, many of us continue to remember Donald Duck’s adventures in Quackshot. On April 1, coinciding with the celebration of April’s Fool Day, FDG Entertainment, authors of the notable Monster Boy revival, shared some images on Twitter as a joke to suggest that they were in charge of a reimagining of the original Mega game. Drive . The next day, and after discovering the wave of positive responses from those of us who grew up with the SEGA machine and with Quackshot we left them, they recognized that although they had published those captures as a joke, the truth is that they tried to negotiate without success the development of a continuation. But why so much interest in Quackshot? Is it just sheer nostalgia or is there something else?
Quackshot is a video game that appeared for Mega Drive in the early 90’s. The player was driving Donald who, one day searching through Uncle Scrooge’s documents, discovered a treasure map. Stealing his plane from Joe McQuack and accompanied by his three nephews: Jorgito, Jaimito and Juanito, he decided to travel the world in search of more clues about the whereabouts of much desired loot. The problem is that Pete’s gang found out about his plans and decided to deploy his men to stop him and keep the prize for himself. With this starting point, we enjoyed an adventure in which exploration, character growth, discoveries, platforming and shooting took on nuclear importance. Because Quackshot wasn’t a jump game anymoreInstead, we had to find the correct item to move forward, examine it in our inventory, and upgrade our plunger gun, as it served both as a weapon and as an item to solve puzzles and interact with the scenery.
To these game design ideas, very original for the time, a non-linear phase structure was added and that forced us to have to discern where we had to go next or where we should return. Graphically, the game featured large characters recreated with very colorful sprites, and their melodies are still remembered.
The story behind the myth
- Release date:December 1991 (USA and Japan), February 1992 (Spain)
- Platform:Mega Drive
- Sales:No specific numbers
- Genre:Adventure / Action / Platformer
- Developer:AM7
- Key personnel in its production:Emirin (Emiko Yamamoto)
- Graphics engine:No specific data
The mythical Donald by Carl Barks. Image: Howardlowery.com
Carl Barks did not invent Donald, but he is considered to be the one who made the character what he is today . He entered Disney a year after the duck’s original appearance as Mickey’s sidekick in 1935. Carl stood out not only as a cartoonist, but as a screenwriter. He created a universe of his own for Donald, the characters that accompany him and gave him such fame that he ended up gaining popularity and prominence. In 1942, Carl stopped working at Disney but not drawing and writing for his character . He signed with Western Publishing and went on to create comics for the publisher in which Donald was the protagonist. Freer, he continued to expand his universe. He created the city of Duckburg (Patoburgo) and also Uncle Scrooge. The inspiration to develop it came from his own life.
Before coming to Disney and then to Western, Carl worked from job to job without succeeding, but as Scrooge says: “You have to be tougher than the toughest and smarter than the most ready to succeed.” That well of gold in which nothing is a metaphor for the recognition that Carl reached after so much effort. It was with Western Publishing that Carl turned Donald into an adventurous treasure hunter.
Donald’s popularity as a world wonder seeker living duck-adventures deeply inspired a very young George Lucas . The director acknowledged for TIME magazine in 1982 that his themes of archeology and exploration, the time travel that ducks sometimes starred, the appearance of aliens and even Barks’ storytelling, panel by panel, deeply inspired him as a writer and director. This is especially noticeable in his Indiana Jones series. The rolling stone that haunts Indi at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark is directly taken from one of Carl Barks’ comics.
With the third part of the trilogy of Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade opening in 1989 with a resounding success, it had become clear that the work of Carl Banks had been significant for a generation of new creators of fiction, also that Donald Duck he was more than just Mickey’s grumpy partner . Thanks to him, the Disney character had achieved a very rich fictional universe of his own that deserved to be exploited in a video game.
Donald falls into the hands of SEGA of Japan
Disney titles were powerful and beautiful but also with good ideasIn 2016, Disney began to move away from the world of video games , but in the 90s it was presented as an emerging market in which to publish its stories. Several titles of his heroes were released on the consoles of the time, but three stood out especially in Mega Drive: Castle of Illusion, starring Mickey Mouse, Quackshot by Donald, and World of Illusion, in which they are both the ones that can be controlled by the player. These three games appeared at a time when, according to what we read in the book Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA , the video games of the console were acquiring the bad reputation of being very beautiful but little fun, not very deep in the playable. These three would work as a trigger to this,as powerful titles, precious but also with good ideas in their mechanics and dynamics .
To reinforce this strategy they were labeled as exclusive to Megadrive , also receiving versions on other SEGA machines. All three were directed by who in the future would become executive producer of the Kingdom Hearts saga and a legend in the sector: Emiko Yamamoto , better known as Emirin. She came from Disney and was commissioned to direct this project. Emirin was clear about what he wanted for Quackshot: to take advantage of the stupendous universe built by Carl Banks during the 1940s and 1950s to design a coherent, intricate, non-linear and well-narrated journey. I mean, I wanted an adventure video game full of discoveries and mystery.
The game can be on sale in the West at Christmas 1991, receiving in Japan the title “Alive! Donald Duck: Georgia Ou no Hihou”
Emirin’s vision could be carried out because SEGA had the best to develop it: with AM7, authors of some of the machine’s most acclaimed titles such as the nocturnal Streets of Rage, The Revenge of Shinobi, the spectacular Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master or Phantasy Star II. Together they created an adventure full of good ideas very well connected to each other.
Unlike other games in Quackshot we didn’t just advance from phase to phase without further ado. We toured one, made a discovery and had to travel to the previous level to solve an enigma that opened a new door for us. And so from beginning to end. There was backtracking and our weapons were being improved to give Donald new powers that allowed him to avoid dangers previously impossible, which made the experience a most exciting journey. The final bosses worked great, serving as tests of what we learned in our travels, and the plunger pistol was discovered, thanks to its qualities of sticking to enemies and walls, as an exceptional weapon both to attack and to interact with our surroundings.
The best of Quackshot
- Its non-linear exploration
- Respect for the work of Carl Banks
- The way Donald grows through his guns
- The music of its catacombs, capable of even giving something of fear
- Your little glimpses of primitive miniature metroidvania
- Exploring through a map with new locations to find
Dissection and influences
Zelda’s master lessons were on QuackshotIn 1986, The Legend of Zelda introduced us to a hero who reached new areas of his world after finding objects or improving previous ones. Link traveled a small fragment of a universe that grew as he also did it by using new items. In 1990, Super Mario World had shown that the progress from phase to phase of a platform and action video game could be articulated by a map, by a phase selector prior to them; and even that the decision to play one or the other could have a certain strategy. It made sense to go back to a known level to locate some secret or a new route. These two concepts captivated all developers of the time; Masterclasses that continue to evolve to this day and are also on Quackshot.
Emirin and AM7 wanted to convey the sensations of travel, exploration and discovery of Banks’ comics, favoring that moment of ‘eureka’ in which the player understands that if he places a piece in the mouth of that statue, a new route opens. To make us feel like an explorer who discovers and grows as such by doing so, and with him his world as in The Legend of Zelda, the game begins by giving us a map with only three locations to go: Duckburg, Mexico and Transylvania. Our weapon is a plunger launcher capable of paralyzing enemies, but that neither sticks to walls nor spends long time attached to them. At first we are weak, but we will improve.
We travel a few meters from Duckburg until we come to a high wall. A scientist warns us that we cannot continue moving forward, so we have to go back to the original map and choose a new destination, asking ourselves : how can we move forward? Where do we have to go? Back on board our aircraft, we can choose whether to go to Transylvania or to Mexico; the game does not decide for us, it grants that to us. In this way, the immersion in that adventurer and explorer Donald is accentuated. To enhance this way of avatarizing the hero, at the end of each tour we usually meet characters from those comic strips from the 1940s. They ask us if we are an adventurer and we confirm it, they put us through tests in exchange for obtaining a treasure and they tell us more about the world.We are already true explorers!
These texts are simple but they make us understand that we are not handling that moody Donald from Disney, but that of Carl Banks. By meeting these friends, we managed to improve our plunger gun. From launching yellow suction cups, they turn red and then green. The acquisition of these improvements changes the dynamics of the game while maintaining the same mechanics. We no longer just paralyze our enemies, now we can also pin them to a wall and use their sticks as trampolines. This action becomes a richer maneuver that not only serves to attack, but also to explore and climb to high places or use enemies as zip lines.
The game world grows and so does the duck
With our new weapon, that first area of Duckburg becomes yet another and then another, climbing the previously impassable wall with our red plungers. The same happens with Mexico through a key and with Transylvania with a weapon capable of breaking bricks. It is very interesting how Quackshot designs the continuations of his levels . From a first section that is more colorful, happy and relaxed, it then takes us to another gloomy or melancholy act or painful ruins.
In Duckburg we played bathed by a sunset over the rooftops after passing the first, more festive phase. After sunny Mexico we go into a temple that is scary thanks to a music loaded with tension. And in Transylvania we are faced with a corridor guarded by a ghost that haunts us and besieges us in a long corridor that seems infinite. The phases are arranged, in this way, in something similar to morning, afternoon and night, which nourishes them with a good narrative sense.
Once this first set of phases is overcome, we obtain new information and the map expands to new areas. The number of objects to discover and find grows, the final bosses increase in difficulty and the scenarios become more difficult puzzles to complete. Being able to climb with the plungers makes the game become more and more vertical. But not everything in Quackshot is spot on. Because it is so experimental in its game design, because it wants to be a miniature metroidvania, there are interesting ideas that it puts on the table but does not know how to finish well. The catacombs that we investigate ask us to return to their entrance to be able to return to the map, which forces us to play the level backwards. The first time you do it, the game has to remove enemies for it to be done. The last time he asks us, he prefers to put a wagon to save us the paperwork, because he knows he can’t make it fun.
The reason you end up giving up going deep into your backtracking is because Quackshot lasts two hours and you can’t save the game . Therefore, there are no break rooms to do so or intermediate rooms. Good backtracking serves to wear down the character who yearns to return to a home to rest in, but this home is not here. Another problem that The Legend of Zelda already suggested how to solve is how quickly we exchange our weapon . In Quackshot we always have to return to the menu while the Nintendo game each weapon was assigned to a button; But of course, here we have to jump and run. There is not that margin with which to maneuver.
A look to the future
Quackshot is all lean, pure action with repeating fair zonesThe Super NES Donkey Kong Country trilogy , published between 1994 and 1996, continues this idea of a game world with phases ordered by a map, but it does not force us to return to phases already played by events in the story or key objects as yes does Quackshot, but by locating new secrets. A few years after the publication of this title came Super Metroid . It’s interesting to compare this game to Quackshot to see how backtracking works best when there are save zones to return to or limited resources to collect.
Over the years, these mini-metroidvania with a map to intercommunicate the separate phases were replaced by large unified worlds. The exploration improved in depth, sure, but against the rhythm. Quackshot is all lean, pure action with the repetition of fair areas . In Star Fox 64 we find again a map of phases by way of locations that expand depending on what we discover.
After Quackshot, we wouldn’t have a worthy Donald again until Tetsuya Nomura and Emirin cast him as Mickey’s partner in Kingdom Hearts . The next most remembered game of the character before this and outside of Megadrive is Donald Duck: Goin ‘Quackers, released in 2000, which is nothing more than a reformulated Crash Bandicoot. With some negative points that are nothing more than an honest attempt to bring new ideas to his world design, great character growth and sections to remember such as the Maharaha labyrinth, the ghost of Transylvania or the tense music of its catacombs. , Quackshot is a formidable video game that you have to play.
Did you know?
- Quackshot is one of the great forgotten in the compilations that are made of Mega Drive. It also didn’t appear on the Mega Drive Mini.
- Contrary to popular belief, the game is inspired by the character’s original comic strips, not Indiana Jones
- In our territory, each game in the Emirin trilogy was accompanied by a ‘starring’ followed by the protagonist who starred in the game.
- Shere Khan, the tiger from the Jungle Book, makes a stellar appearance as one of the most difficult final enemies in the game.
- On television we met the most adventurous duck with DuckTales, originally aired between 1987 and 1990, but the protagonist of the fiction was not Donald
- If we eat five chillies, Donald will regain the character of his original character, protesting, screaming and becoming invulnerable
- The giant rolling ball that chases Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark is based on the one in the Seven Cities of Cibola comic dated 1954
How to play Quackshot today?
Playing Quackshot today, comfortably and legally, is very difficult. It has not appeared compiled anywhere in a long time, so replaying it happens to have the original game or to emulate it. Quackshot is not an especially expensive game to buy second-hand, with prices around 40 euros; although there is always some nut who thinks he can sell it for 300 euros. Do not bite.
