AKA “Disney’s Aladdin” is a classic Megadrive/Genesis platform game based on the hit 1992 Disney film of the same name (the one featuring Robin Williams as the voice of The Genie). It was first released in November 1993.

Programmer David Perry created an animation engine that utilised frames from the film and therefore managed to create a breakthrough piece of technology that also happened to be a good game. Well, a “good game” if you like David Perry platform games…

In Aladdin you of course control Aladdin himself and must jump your way through multiple levels based on locations from the film: streets, rooftops, dungeons, palaces, and the like. The monkey Abu gets his own bonus stage, where you must catch bonus items that fall from the sky, while avoiding hazards like rocks and pots.

Aladdin was a big hit for Virgin Games and Sega of America and it is seen as an important game in the library of the Megadrive/Genesis. A masterpiece of animation and design – all created in just under five months, with David Perry coding, David Bishop, Andy Luckey, and Ian Freedman handling the animation; Nick Bruty and Stephen Crow creating the backgrounds, and Tommy Tallarico doing the sound and music. A process was developed to convert the animation footage from the film into Megadrive-usable data. Which results in some extraordinarily well-animated elements of the game.

Aladdin may not have the depth or kudos of something like Super Mario World, but it did have a significant impact on mid-Nineties gaming.

More: Disney’s Aladdin on Wikipedia