Based in the 1991 film from Paramount Pictures, The Addams Family is a cute and colourful platform game, developed and published by Ocean Software. The Atari ST version, featured here, was first released in 1992.

In it, you play as Gomez, who is searching for his family members, who require rescuing. Gomez can jump, duck, fly (with the aid of a Fez), collect money, go through doors, and – most importantly – can jump on the heads of enemies to either kill them or damage them.

Gomez has two hearts (shown at the top of the screen), which allow him two instances of damage, before losing a life.

To rescue a family member, you must explore The Addams Family mansion, and its surrounding areas, and find the bosses that must be defeated in order to release them.

The Addams Family is simple stuff, but is beautifully presented, with good controls and character movement, making it very playable. At times, it does get mind-bendingly difficult, though. The game has plenty of secrets to search for, and is fairly varied in terms of presentation, although it’s not what I would call innovative or original.

Ocean released this game on most major gaming platforms, and the Atari ST port stands up well to all the other versions. It even seems to have some graphical detail that the Amiga version doesn’t have (like the colourful backgrounds in the mansion hallway). Usually, it’s the other way around, with the Amiga receiving graphical enhancements over the ST. But not in this case, for some unknown reason. Maybe it was because the ST version was the lead version being developed? I dunno. What I do know, though, is that the ST version of The Addams Family is still fun to play nowadays, so is worth a look if you’ve never played it.

More: The Addams Family (Video Game) on Wikipedia