Rascal (video game)

Rascal
Developer(s)	Traveller's Tales
Publisher(s)	Psygnosis
Director(s)	Jon Burton
Producer(s)	Chris Rowley
Designer(s)	Jon Burton
Programmer(s)	Dave Dootson Paul Houbart Gary Ireland
Artist(s)	Beverly Bush James Cunliffe Sean Naden
Composer(s)	Andy Blythe and Marten Joustra
Platform(s)	PlayStation
Release	EU: March 1998 NA: March 27, 1998[1]
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player

Rascal is a platform game developed by Traveller's Tales^[2] and published by Psygnosis for the PlayStation. The main character and several enemies were designed by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.^[3][4]

The player takes control of a mischievous boy who travels through time to rescue his father, armed only with a "Bubble Gun". The game met with uniformly negative reviews which cited poor camera work and needlessly cumbersome controls. It was widely considered as one of the worst video games ever made.

Professor Casper Clockwise is in his lab making the final adjustments to his time-traveling device when someone creeps behind him. Meanwhile, his son Callum "Rascal" Clockwise is walking through a secret route under the house to get to his father's lab. The lights go out and an alarm sounds. Rascal rushes down to see the problem, but two aliens in spacecraft appear and chase him down the corridor.

Rascal makes it to his father's lab by going through the safe door entrance. He finds Chronon, the evil master of time, holding his father hostage with another of his dad's inventions called the "Bubble Gun". Chronon accidentally activates the controls for the time machine, and he and the Professor are sucked into the time portal. The Bubble Gun drops from it and lands at the feet of Rascal. He picks it up, vowing to save his father.

Rascal chases the two through the timestream, from the medieval Castle Hackalott to the Aztec Temple at Chichimeca, to the lost city of Atlantis, to the Jolly Raider pirate ship and Dodgy City in the old West, traveling to each location's past and present forms and collecting the pieces of a Time Clock from both before fighting Chronon in each area's future. Rascal travels to the Corridors of Time, Chronon's lair within the space-time continuum, where, after defeating its guardians brought from each of the other time periods, he defeats Chronon and rescues his father. After escaping using another time portal that leads back into the hallway of Rascal's house, Rascal and his father return safely back home, leaving the portal to shatter apart on Chronon, trapping him within interdimensional time forever.

In the game, the player assumes the role of Rascal armed with the Bubble Gun, in a mission through five worlds - Castle Hackalott (a medieval castle), Chichimeca Temple (an ancient Aztec temple), the aquatic city of Atlantis, The Jolly Raider (a pirate ship), and Dodgy City (a town in the Wild West).^[2] Each world has three forms: past, present, and future^[2] (e.g. Castle Hackalott appears as a medieval castle in the past while in the present day, it has become a museum). The player needs only to complete the past level to gain access to the next world. In each past and present level, the player has to find the six pieces of the Time Clock (some of which are held by certain enemies) in order to access the Time Bubble and complete the level, in turn unlocking the next form of that world. Each future level has a boss battle against Chronon and defeating him in all five gives access to the final world. The Bubble Gun has limited ammo, and the range and strength of the bubbles depends on how much ammo is left. In most levels, minor enemies will spawn from Time Bubbles over time (usually those to do with the level theming itself) and when defeated, they will leave behind various items such as Bubble Gun ammo (in either green or red; the latter can temporarily grant the bubbles with homing capabilities), hearts that will restore health and "Chronon's Gift" (a red skull and crossbones) which will cause damage to the player if picked up.

The game was showcased at E3 1997.^[5] Traveller's Tales founder Jon Burton revealed in a video posted in September 2018, that the poor controls were a result of the publisher requesting that the controls be changed from directional movement to tank controls similar to Tomb Raider, leading to issues with how the game's camera engine was designed. Burton also claimed his involvement in the game was limited due to being preoccupied with Sonic R and that effectively made the publisher in charge.^[6]

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score GameRankings 49%[7] Review scores Publication Score AllGame [8] Edge 5/10[10] EGM 3.625/10[11][lower-alpha 1] Famitsu 22/40[12] Game Informer 6/10[13] GameRevolution B−[14] GameSpot 4/10[15] IGN 2/10[16] Next Generation [17] OPM (UK) 5/10[18]

The game received generally unfavorable reviews. Critics widely praised the graphics,^{[11][16][17][19]} but also unanimously concluded that they are overridden by the game's weaknesses on every other front. Next Generation said that Rascal was "more of a technological achievement (one of the only PlayStation games with no noticeable load time) than a game, and worth picking up only for those who enjoy being annoyed."^[17] Critics often bemoaned the controls,^[11][16][17] with IGN explaining that while having controls operate relative to the player character's position works in first-person shooter games, platformers require more immediate control of the character in order to elude enemies.^[16] Next Generation noted that the lack of a strafe button compounds the problem by requiring the player to constantly turn their character to maneuver around bosses.^[17]

However, the most widespread criticism was with the game camera.^{[11][15][16][17][19]} GameSpot noted that objects behind the player character often obscure the view of what lies ahead,^[15] while GamePro said that whenever the player character stops, the camera moves in so tightly that the player cannot see nearby enemies and obstacles. GamePro concluded that "only the most forgiving gamers will stick with this title after a brief play."^{[lower-alpha 2][19]} Additionally criticizing the game for inconsistent camera angles and level design which is straightforward to the point of being dull, Dan Hsu of Electronic Gaming Monthly summed up, "Rascal combines poor camera work with horrible controls to give us one of the worst 3D platforming experiences yet."^[11]

Rascal held a 49% on the review aggregation website GameRankings, based on five reviews.^[7]

In Japan, the game was ported and published by Takara under the name of Bubblegun Kid (バブルガンキッド, Baburugan Kiddo) on March 18, 1999, almost a year after its U.S. release date.^[12]

• Rascal on IMDb
• MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms.^[1] Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers".^[2] This lengthy approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months.^[3] The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing.^[4] A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.^[5]

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school.^[6][7] Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information.^[5] In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.^[5]

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount.^[8] This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign.^[7] A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art).^[9] Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel,^[10] and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.^[7]

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million.^[11] The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager.^[12][13][14] Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface.^[1] This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.^[15]

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue.^[16] Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.^[17]

• IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

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