Madness: House of Fun is a cancelled platform game based around the Ska music group with the same name, that was in development by Gremlin Graphics for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. The project was a “remake” of the original Gremlin’s Amiga title “Harlequin”, with new graphic, characters and Madness’ music. As Robert Hazelby (webmaster of Madness Information Service Online, a fan site of the group) wrote on the Total Madness mailing list:
I’m not sure if the band were actually going to be featured in the game as Gremlin devised some strange character (who’s name escapes me at the moment) who the player would control. In the background, it was planned that some awful 6 channel Yamaha sound-chip induced ditties would be playing away.
Unfortunately the bottom dropped out of the console market and Gremlin decided to can the Madness computer game and so it was never released. Ex MML subscriber Jacco Van’t Reit (did I spell that correctly) did offer his services with regards to helping to produce the game after he had worked on previous projects for the Gremlin team but this unfortunately didn’t happen.
Track down an Amiga and a copy of Harlequin to see how your Madness game would have played.
Thanks to Celine and Rod_Wod we were able to preserve many screens of Madness: House of Fun, that were found in some old magazines (as Mean Machine #17, Mega Force #17).
Images:
What do you think about this unseen game? Give your vote!
(8 votes, average: 4.88 out of 5)
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The name of the character was supposed to be ‘Nutz’ according to Megazone issue 29.
According to Mean Machines, main character was:
Mr Smash based on Carl Smythe, the bands trumpet player.
MD soundchip versions of House Of Fun, Baggy Trousers, One Step Beyond and Night Boat To Cario and each would tie-in with the level in question.
I managed to interview most of the protagonists behind the game in my book A Gremlin in the Works which is available via Bitmap Books: http://www.bitmapbooks.co.uk/products/a-gremlin-in-the-works?variant=10907382339
I’ve also been lucky enough to obtain some footage of the game being played that I’ll be releasing soon.
The source code with no binaries found. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/258430-piko-interactives-protocopyright-acquisitions-official-thread/
Only just noticed this posting. I was working on this game back in the 90s and there is a feature on it in the book titled A Gremlin in the Works.
Gremlin also annouced this for the Nintendo GB, SNES and NES.
Will forward on the mag scan