Humongous Entertainment

[lisalover1]

Back in the mid/late 90's, in addition to owning an SNES, I played a whole lot of games on my PC, many of which were from a company that I really don't hear people talking a lot about anymore: Humongous Entertainment. They specialized in kid-friendly Point-and-Click Adventure games, and actually made some really excellent titles. Some of their biggest series include Pajama Sam, Putt-Putt, Spy Fox, and Backyard Sports. I always loved the painstaking amount of detail they put into their adventure games; they all had absolutely gorgeous animation, for one. If you just clicked around at things on the screen, you would find hundreds of extra animations from otherwise static objects. Everything just felt vibrant, creative, and alive. Has anyone else played any of their games before? I'm sure plenty of you have, but I just find it odd that I never hear them mentioned when talking about great Adventure games.

[CRTGAMER]

Back in the mid/late 90's, in addition to owning an SNES, I played a whole lot of games on my PC, many of which were from a company that I really don't hear people talking a lot about anymore: Humongous Entertainment. They specialized in kid-friendly Point-and-Click Adventure games, and actually made some really excellent titles. Some of their biggest series include Pajama Sam, Putt-Putt, Spy Fox, and Backyard Sports. I always loved the painstaking amount of detail they put into their adventure games; they all had absolutely gorgeous animation, for one. If you just clicked around at things on the screen, you would find hundreds of extra animations from otherwise static objects. Everything just felt vibrant, creative, and alive. Has anyone else played any of their games before? I'm sure plenty of you have, but I just find it odd that I never hear them mentioned when talking about great Adventure games.

I have a some of the Living Books series. My kids played them when they were little. I would sometimes do a "test run" myself, playing just one more screen. Great discovering things just by clicking. Anyone with little ones should give them a try.

[Dylan]

Don't forget Freddy Fish. Pajama Sam, Spy Fox, and Backyard Sports (particularly Baseball for me) were my favorites. There was also some sort of minigame collection that I remember adoring. I actually haven't thought about any of this in a long time. I'm guessing that one of the reasons that you don't hear about them anymore is that the gameplay is a tad shallow (for point and click games, they're really easy). To be fair though, if these games have as much personality as I remember, they could probably carry themselves on their charm alone.

[DinnerX]

They deserve a lot more recognition than they get. The games are simple, but still entertaining. Most of the games have several slightly different scenarios that are randomly selected when you start a new game. That adds a lot of replay value, as does hunting for all those little hidden things to click on. I remember some of those hidden clickable events interacted with one another if you clicked on them in a certain order.

Several years ago I used to see Humongous Entertainment games all the time in bargain bins and I bought most of their adventure games then. Ron Gilbert was involved with a lot of the games. All but two of the Humongous Entertainment adventure games work in SCUMMVM. On 64-bit windows SCUMMVM is the only way to play some of the older humongous games since they use 16-bit executables.

You don't hear about Humongous anymore, because they don't really exist. They got bought by infrograms I initially I think. Atari has them now. Backyard sports is the only franchise the recent owners have made games for.

[BoringSupreez]

I grew up about the same time as the OP, and played the same games. I loved them, and they were a great introduction to gaming for someone my age. My dad bought me a CD with Freddy Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds, Buzzy the Knowledge Bug's Exlore the Farm, Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear's Activity Pack, and Putt-Putt Joins the Parade all on it. I think I was three at the time, and that was the first game I ever owned myself. Somehow, I've managed to hold onto it all these years even though I lost many of the other games I owned at that age.

[Nemoide]

I've never played any of the Humongous Entertainment games, I remember seeing them in catalogs and possible Scholastic book orders, but I thought I was too old for them.

Now I realize that the company was founded by Ron Gilbert of Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island fame and wish I had given them a chance.

[lisalover1]

Humongous is technically still around in some form, as they were allowed to use their name and logo for the Wii and iOS releases of their games. Also, I just realized this, but it's kind of amazing that they were able to make the Backyard Sports games run in the SCUMM engine.

I've never played any of the Humongous Entertainment games, I remember seeing them in catalogs and possible Scholastic book orders, but I thought I was too old for them.

Now I realize that the company was founded by Ron Gilbert of Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island fame and wish I had given them a chance.

The book order catalogs were where I got most of their games, too. I fact, I think I got the first 3 Freddi Fish games as part of a bundle at my school's book fair. (Speaking of which, has anyone eer figured out if Freddi is male or female?)

Anyway, I definitely recommend downloading SCUMMVM and a couple of their titles if you want a good adventure game that is relatively free of bizarre, obtuse puzzles and no-win conditions.

[Psoz]

I'm so glad people remember these games. I distinctly recall playing these on a windows 95 fujitsu lifebook (and even then you needed to change color modes to make the games work). I'd play Freddi Fish (who is a girl by the way, if I remember correctly that's made clear in the second game.....the haunted schoolhouse or something) and putt putt until the battery ran out. I recall that putt putt joins the circus came out relatively recently (on the humongous games time scale) like 2003 or something. All my family members who aggressively reject childhood memories as required ephemera made fun of me for buying a kid's game, but I played the hell out of that. Lovely games they made, I never really got into pajama sam (other than the first game) or spy fox. I fondly remember the living books logo. OHH I still have a freddi fish clock somewhere....sorry to go crazy and ramble there but I got so excited when Nemoide mentioned scholastic book catalogs (which were the only ways I could obtain video games).

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Loved Backyard Baseball, Hockey, Freddi Fish 1 and 2, and Putt Putt Saves The Zoo as a kid.

Sadly I don't have them anymore, not that I'd really be interested in playing them again. There are plenty of fond memories though. Especially of Baseball.

Apparently Freddi is a she.

[DinnerX]

It was probably 7 or 8 years ago I bought most of this collection. The games didn't take long to beat, but they were fun and cheap. I recommend older gamers try the Spy Fox series first. The references to movies and tv shows are quite amusing.

These games are my favorites from each main adventure series.

Spy Fox in Dry Cereal
Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside
Freddi Fish 4: The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch
Putt-Putt Enters the Race



EDIT: The big thinkers and arcade style games are rather boring. Big Thinkers is strictly educational and the arcade games aren't particularly interesting.