Todd's Adventures in Slime World

Not every game from 1990 had the courage to be so grossly entertaining — Todd's Adventures in Slime World wasn't afraid of dirt, slime and humor that many an animated series would be proud of today. And beneath that gelatinous shell hid a surprisingly ambitious exploratory action game.

As the hero Todd you push your way through interconnected slimy caves, collecting samples and looking for a way out. The structure is close to a metroidvania — instead of linear progress you freely explore branching corridors, backtrack and gradually uncover the map. Slime isn't just scenery: it sticks to you, dirties you and you have to get rid of it, which gives exploration a distinctive mechanic and the typical "gross-out" charm that earned the game its reputation.

The studio Epyx also built in support for co-op play via the ComLynx cable, so you could wade through the caves as a duo — a remarkable feature on a pocket console in the early nineties. Linking two Lynxes to explore a slimy world together was something the competition couldn't boast at the time.

For its era this was an unusually ambitious title. Instead of a single repeating screen there was a sprawling interconnected world to discover, its own atmosphere and humor that pulled no punches. That made Todd's Adventures in Slime World one of the more distinctive games in the early Lynx lineup.

Today you'll appreciate it mainly as a bold experiment — proof that even at the dawn of color handhelds there were creators who wanted to offer more than just fast action and bet on exploration, mood and a hearty dose of slime.

Why play: Ambitious exploratory action with a metroidvania flavor, distinctive gross-out humor and co-op via ComLynx — one of the most distinctive early Lynx titles.