Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day

Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day
Developer(s)	Viacom New Media[1]
Publisher(s)	Viacom New Media[1]
Designer(s)	Brian Babendererde
Composer(s)	Nu Romantic Productions
Platform(s)	Super NES[1]
Release	NA: April 1, 1994[1]
Genre(s)	2D action platformer[1]
Mode(s)	Single-player

Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day is a Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game released in the United States in 1994 and in 1997 in Canada, and is based on Joe Murray's Rocko's Modern Life television series on Nickelodeon. It was developed by Viacom New Media.^[2]

Gameplay

Spunky's Dangerous Day is played as a two-dimensional side-scrolling platform game, and the player controls Rocko.^[3] There are four sets of stages in which Rocko's dog Spunky has wandered off in search of an object that catches his attention: Sand in Your Navel (set at the beach), Trash-O-Madness (set at the dump), Ice Scream (set in O-Town itself), and Unbalanced Load (set in the laundromat), and each individual stage consists of four different levels.^[3] Except for Ice Scream all of the levels were based on episodes of the show. Rocko's goal in every level is to keep Spunky safe from danger.^[3] This means activating platforms and switches at specific times, as well as feeding Spunky certain items and defeating enemies in the way.

Plot

The game takes place in a beach, where Rocko is playing with his pet Spunky. Rocko throws the frisbee, but flies very far away which Spunky goes after it. Rocko must protect him at Rock-O-Whey Beach, the Hill-O-Stench garbage dump, and Laundryland.

Development

Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day was unusual in that work on it started while the TV series it was based on was still in the early stages of development. As such, the development 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.^[4] The game took slightly under a year to complete.^[4]

References