Software:Wild Woody

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Short description: 1995 video game by Sega
Wild Woody
A Sega CD video game cover titled "Wild Woody" and depicting a pencil with a face and limbs running toward the viewer while carrying a lit stick of dynamite.
Developer(s)Sega Multimedia Studio
Publisher(s)Sega of America
Director(s)Gordon Haberfelde
Chris Shen
Producer(s)Gordon Haberfelde
Designer(s)Chris Shen
Bruce Krueger
Doug Lanford
Programmer(s)Dan Hitchens
David Marshall
Artist(s)John Broenen
Mimi Doggett
Composer(s)Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal
Platform(s)Sega CD
ReleaseSeptember 1995
Genre(s)Platform
Mode(s)Single-player

Wild Woody is a 1995 platform video game developed and published by Sega for the Sega CD. The game's premise is centered on the eponymous character, an anthropomorphic pencil who must gather the scattered segments of the totem pole that brought him to life. Woody is capable of erasing enemies and obstacles as well as creating sketches to destroy enemies or improve his navigation.

Wild Woody was developed by Sega Multimedia Studio and regarded by its development team as a swan song for the Sega CD platform; Sega Multimedia Studio also dissolved by the time of its release. Wild Woody includes 3D-rendered cutscenes featuring motion capture animation for Woody. The game was poorly received by critics for its controls and visuals, and it failed to make a commercial impact.

Gameplay

Wild Woody, a pencil with a face and limbs, is inside a cave and using his eraser to rub on the head of a skeleton enemy underneath him.
An example of gameplay in Wild Woody

Wild Woody is a side-scrolling platform game in which the player controls the titular character Woody, an anthropomorphic pencil. Woody was brought to life by the bottom segment of a miniature totem pole, and is tasked with retrieving the five scattered segments of the totem pole from the worlds they have created for themselves.[1]

Woody can erase enemy characters by jumping onto them, and can erase certain walls and floors that impede his progress. Woody can also create living beings from collectible sketches to destroy enemies or improve navigation through the levels.[2][3] The sketches Woody collects will be added to his personal sketchbook, which is available in the game's pause screen and allows the player to select a particular sketch for use. Woody is capable of drawing from three consecutive sketches before he becomes too short to draw again. Woody's length can be restored by collecting pencils.[2]

The game consists of five levels, each divided into two acts and a boss encounter.[4] The first act of each level includes eight scattered puzzle pieces. If all eight pieces are collected and the first act is completed, a bonus level will initiate before the beginning of the second act. In these levels, Woody must navigate through a maze, collect sketches and extra lives, and reach the end within a limited time.[5] The game is complete when all levels have been cleared and all totem pole pieces have been recovered.[1]

Plot

Dusty, an adventurer, returns to his office with a miniature totem pole consisting of six heads, and is immediately called to a rescue mission in Sumatra.[6] As a result, he misses a message from an anthropologist on his answering machine explaining that "on the third Wednesday of July under a full moon during a snowfall", the totem pole's power would be released; its segments scatter and create parallel universes for themselves, which threatens to destroy the world.[7] The bottom segment, Low Man, brings one of Dusty's pencils to life as a means to recover the scattered totem pieces. The pencil, who is able to create living sketches, christens himself "Wild Woody" and eagerly undertakes the task of saving the world.[8]

Under Low Man's instruction, Woody recovers Squid Lips from a pirate book,[3] Brimstone from a painting of Mount Olympus,[9] Lugnuts from a mechanism blueprint,[10] Orbit from a science fiction comic book,[11] and Tombstone from a discarded flyer.[12] Upon the totem pole's completion, Low Man grants Woody his wish for a paintbrush girlfriend and promises to see him again the next time the world needs saving, which Woody doubts.[13]

Development and release

North American model 2 Sega CD and a model 2 Sega Genesis
Wild Woody was regarded by Sega Multimedia Studio as the swan song for the Sega CD accessory.

Following the completion of Sega Multimedia Studio's Jurassic Park for the Sega CD, the studio was divided into two teams. While one team was tasked with researching games for the upcoming Sega Saturn, the other began developing the game Wild Woody, which was regarded by the team as the Sega CD's swan song.[14] Doug Lanford, while credited as a designer,[15] was paid as a junior programmer and created much of the game's engine.[16][17] The character animation during gameplay was created by scanning hand-drawn frames that were then colored and cleaned digitally, while the animation for Woody during the cutscenes was created via motion capture performed by Donald Hom.[15][18] The characters Woody and the totem pole segment Low Man are respectively voiced by Joe Kerska and Jeff Farber. Other voices were provided by Bruce Robertson and Debbie Rogers.[15] Lanford hid an easter egg within the second act of the game's first level that would render a mermaid – one of many beings created from the sketch mechanic – topless if four hidden items are collected in a certain order. While Lanford did not create the animation, he was amused enough to allow its incorporation.[16][19]

The soundtrack was composed and produced by Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, who was given a one-month deadline to create a score consisting of a title theme, 16 game level themes, and tracks for six story cutscenes and five game over sequences. Thal's central strategy for composing the score was to begin silly and light-hearted and evolve in intensity toward the game's climax; Thal applied the same strategy within each of the game's five levels from the first to third acts. Thal performed the bass, guitar, vocals and keyboard himself, while the drums were performed by Brad Kaiser. The soundtrack was recorded and mixed in February 1995.[20]

By the time of Wild Woody's release in September 1995,[21] the Sega CD was near the end of its life cycle, and Sega Multimedia Studio had dissolved.[16] As predicted by the development team, distribution of Wild Woody was quickly relegated to bargain bins.[17]

Reception

Reception
Review scores
PublicationScore
EGM22.5/40[21]
Game Informer3/10[23]
GamePro7/20[22]
VideoGames6/10[24]

Critical reception to Wild Woody was generally poor. A reviewer for VideoGames noted the high amount of erasable elements and described the music as "lots of wacky toe-tappers", but found the visuals to be "a little grainy".[24] The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly agreed that the ability to draw up necessary items is interesting, but that the controls make erasing enemies difficult and there are frequent cheap hits.[21] The Pencil Grinder of GamePro criticized the poor controls when jumping and summarized that "Woody comes up short in every department."[22] The game's title has been widely criticized for its sexually suggestive nature.[21][24][25][26] In response, Doug Lanford agreed that the title was "tragic" and recalled that it was subject to several jokes by the development team.[16] Wild Woody failed to make a commercial impact, which Lanford attributed to its late release in the 16-bit era, questionable character design and standard platforming gameplay.[14]

In a retrospective review for Wild Woody, a writer for Game Informer lambasted the game as "tremendously putrid" and "one of the most impotent games in the Sega CD's pathetic library". The writer particularly criticized the "awful" cutscenes and inconsistent controls which resulted in "unavoidable" damage from enemies, but acknowledged the music's high quality.[23] Evan Hopkins of Screen Rant felt that the game's "eye-searing" cutscenes, "x-treme" attitude and obnoxious mascot character made Wild Woody "a perfect allegory for the failure of the Sega CD". He criticized the game's controls as "remarkably clunky" and lending to an unfairly steep difficulty level.[27]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Wild Woody (Sega CD) instruction manual, p. 2
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Wild Woody (Sega CD) instruction manual, p. 5
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Sega Multimedia Studio (September 1995). Wild Woody. Sega CD. Sega of America. Level/area: Opening cutscene. "Low Man: Squid Lips went into that pirate book. Jump in after him and look for sketches in there. Any sketch you draw will come to life. Now go!" 
  4. ↑ Wild Woody (Sega CD) instruction manual, pp. 7–11
  5. ↑ Wild Woody (Sega CD) instruction manual, p. 6
  6. ↑ Sega Multimedia Studio (September 1995). Wild Woody. Sega CD. Sega of America. Level/area: Opening cutscene. "Nigel: Dusty, this is Nigel in Sumatra! I've been trying to get a hold of you all day long! Krakatoa's about to blow again! We need you here pronto, mate! The chopper should be there any minute! / Dusty: Oh, beautiful. There's no rest for the weary." 
  7. ↑ Sega Multimedia Studio (September 1995). Wild Woody. Sega CD. Sega of America. Level/area: Opening cutscene. "Sandra: Dusty, this is Sandra over at Anthro. I just translated the tablet to study that totem you picked up. Now get this: if the spirits of the totem are freed, each one creates a parallel universe that can devour the world. Your standard "chaos, doom, end of the world" story. Lucky for us, though, its power can only be released on the third Wednesday of July under a full moon during a snowfall. This stuff kills me." 
  8. ↑ Sega Multimedia Studio (September 1995). Wild Woody. Sega CD. Sega of America. Level/area: Opening cutscene. "Low Man: Whoa, big fella! You got a name, lead head? / Woody: Call me Woody... WIIILD Woody! Golly, I know my name, but it seems that's all I know. / Low Man: Wait, let me explain. I'm Low Man of the totem pole. My fathead totem brothers have escaped my control, and I brought you to life to go and round 'em up. If you don't get them back, they'll wipe out everything! So, what do you think? Think you can save the world? / Woody: My good man, as of fifteen seconds ago, I was born to save the world!" 
  9. ↑ Sega Multimedia Studio (September 1995). Wild Woody. Sega CD. Sega of America. Level/area: Cutscene #2. "Woody: Who's next? / Low Man: Brimstone. He blasted into that picture. It used to be a Greek painting. Now you're looking at Olympus, home of the gods." 
  10. ↑ Sega Multimedia Studio (September 1995). Wild Woody. Sega CD. Sega of America. Level/area: Cutscene #3. "Woody: Who's next on the hit parade? / Low Man: Lugnuts. He flew into that blueprint." 
  11. ↑ Sega Multimedia Studio (September 1995). Wild Woody. Sega CD. Sega of America. Level/area: Cutscene #4. "Low Man: Orbit ran off into that book!" 
  12. ↑ Sega Multimedia Studio (September 1995). Wild Woody. Sega CD. Sega of America. Level/area: Cutscene #5. "Low Man: One more job. You gotta go get Tombstone. You'll find him there." 
  13. ↑ Sega Multimedia Studio (September 1995). Wild Woody. Sega CD. Sega of America. Level/area: Ending cutscene. "Low Man: Thanks again, Woody. I'll see you next time the world needs saving. / Woody: Pfft, yeah, only if we sell a zillion units. / Low Man: Now for your wish!" 
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Horowitz, Ken (2016). Playing at the Next Level: A History of American Sega Games. McFarland. p. 128. ISBN 978-1476625577. https://books.google.com/books?id=9LN5DQAAQBAJ. Retrieved 2020-12-02. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Wild Woody (Sega CD) instruction manual, pp. 12–13
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 Lanford, Doug (March 2, 2004). "Wild Woody Sega CD". http://www.opusgames.com/games/pencil/pencil.html. 
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Horowitz, Ken (March 1, 2011). "Interview: Doug Lanford (SOA Programmer & Tester)". Sega-16. https://www.sega-16.com/2011/03/interview-doug-lanford/. 
  18. ↑ "A Pencil And His Scribblings: Wild Woody". Sega Visions: 58–59. September 1995. https://archive.org/details/Sega-Visions-Issue-25/page/n61/mode/2up. 
  19. ↑ Cronin, Brian (September 6, 2017). "Video Game Characters Who Secretly Bared It All". https://www.cbr.com/saucy-bits-15-video-game-characters-who-secretly-bared-it-all/. 
  20. ↑ Thal, Ron. "Bumblefoot Discography: Wild Woody". http://www.bumblefoot.com/discography/other/wildwoody.htm. 
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 "Review Crew: Wild Woody". Electronic Gaming Monthly (Sendai Publishing) (74): 36. September 1995. https://archive.org/details/electronic-gaming-monthly-issue-074-september-1995/page/n37/mode/2up. 
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 The Pencil Grinder (October 1995). "ProReview: Wild Woody". GamePro (IDG) (75): 56. https://retrocdn.net/images/c/c1/GamePro_US_075.pdf. Retrieved 2020-03-19. 
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "Classic Reviews: Wild Woody". Game Informer (122): 132. June 2003. 
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 "Capsule Reviews: Wild Woody". VideoGames (Larry Flynt Publications) (81): 88. October 1995. https://retrocdn.net/images/3/38/VideoGames_US_81.pdf. Retrieved 2020-05-16. 
  25. ↑ Ferris, Duke (June 12, 2006). "The 50 Worst Video Game Names Ever". https://www.gamerevolution.com/features/18-worst_game_names. 
  26. ↑ "The Top 10 Worst Character Names". Game Informer (188): 22. December 2008. 
  27. ↑ Hopkins, Evan (February 7, 2019). "20 Video Game Mascots From The 90s That Tried (And Failed) To Dethrone Mario". Screen Rant. https://screenrant.com/video-game-mascots-90s-tried-failed-to-dethrone-mario/. 
  • 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.

Features

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.

History

Logo used until March 2014

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]

See also

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

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sheehan, Gavin (2023-02-22). "Atari Relaunches The Fully Rebuilt & Optimized MobyGames Website". https://bleedingcool.com/games/atari-relaunches-the-fully-rebuilt-optimized-mobygames-website/. 
  2. ↑ Litchfield, Ted (2021-11-26). "Zombie company Atari to devour MobyGames". https://www.pcgamer.com/zombie-company-atari-to-devour-mobygames/. 
  3. ↑ "MobyGames FAQ: Emails Answered § When will my submission be approved?". Blue Flame Labs. 30 March 2014. http://www.mobygames.com/info/faq7#g1. 
  4. ↑ "The MobyGames Standards and Practices". Blue Flame Labs. 6 January 2016. http://www.mobygames.com/info/standards. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Miller, Stanley A. (2003-04-22). "People's choice awards honor favorite Web sites". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 
  6. ↑ "20 Years of MobyGames" (in en). 2019-02-28. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2019/02/28/20-years-of-mobygames/. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Plunkett, Luke (2022-03-10). "Atari Buys MobyGames For $1.5 Million". https://kotaku.com/mobygames-retro-credits-database-imdb-atari-freyholtz-b-1848638521. 
  8. ↑ "Report: MobyGames Acquired By GameFly Media". Gamasutra. 2011-02-07. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/report-mobygames-acquired-by-gamefly-media. 
  9. ↑ Corriea, Alexa Ray (December 31, 2013). "MobyGames purchased from GameFly, improvements planned". http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/31/5261414/mobygames-purchased-from-gamefly-improvements-planned. 
  10. ↑ Wawro, Alex (31 December 2013). "Game dev database MobyGames getting some TLC under new owner". Gamasutra. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/game-dev-database-mobygames-getting-some-tlc-under-new-owner. 
  11. ↑ "Atari invests in Anstream, may buy MobyGames". November 24, 2021. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-24-atari-invests-in-anstream-may-buy-mobygames. 
  12. ↑ Rousseau, Jeffrey (2022-03-09). "Atari purchases Moby Games". https://www.gamesindustry.biz/atari-purchases-moby-games. 
  13. ↑ "Atari Completes MobyGames Acquisition, Details Plans for the Site's Continued Support". March 8, 2022. https://www.atari.com/atari-completes-mobygames-acquisition-details-plans-for-the-sites-continued-support/. 
  14. ↑ "Atari has acquired game database MobyGames for $1.5 million" (in en-GB). 2022-03-09. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/atari-has-acquired-game-database-mobygames-for-1-5-million/. 
  15. ↑ Stanton, Rich (2022-03-10). "Atari buys videogame database MobyGames for $1.5 million". https://www.pcgamer.com/atari-buys-videogame-database-mobygames-for-dollar15-million/. 
  16. ↑ Harris, John (2024-03-09). "MobyGames Offering “Pro” Membership". https://setsideb.com/mobygames-offering-pro-membership/. 
  17. ↑ "MobyGames on Patreon". http://www.patreon.com/mobygames. 
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