Bill's Tomato Game: An Amiga Puzzler and Its Lost Mega Drive Port
Not many puzzle games can say they star a worried tomato. Bill's Tomato Game was released by Psygnosis for the Amiga in 1992, designed and programmed by Bill Pullan, with artwork by Lee Carus-Westcott and music by Mike Clarke. Its working name was simply Tomato Game, as a May 1991 issue of The One magazine shows.
At a glance
- Based on: Bill's Tomato Game (Psygnosis, Amiga, 1992)
- Created by: Bill Pullan (design and programming), for Psygnosis
- Released: 1992 (Amiga); the Mega Drive prototype surfaced in 2014
- Genre: Puzzle
- What sets it apart: a 16-bit rescue mission built on trial, error and physics
How the game works
You guide Terry the tomato up Sammy Squirrel's vine to rescue his girlfriend Tracey. The vine is organised into 10 worlds of 10 levels each, and every level is a single fixed screen. Terry gets just one jump per attempt, so the task is to arrange the surroundings, using limited items such as electric fans and trampolines, so that the jump lands where it should. The number of attempts and the time are both limited. The concept is often compared to Sierra's The Incredible Machine, and Computer Gaming World called it highly entertaining and addictive in 1993.
The Mega Drive story
A Mega Drive port was planned but cancelled. In October 2014 a prototype was dumped from an EPROM cartridge and released by a collector, MrMark0673, via the Hidden Palace preservation project. This edition is presented as a fan-made version built on that lost port, with 16-bit visuals and music in the spirit of the Amiga original. The exact differences between that prototype and this finished edition are not documented.