Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales
A side-scrolling platformer through five fairy-tale-themed chapters.
Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales is a platform game developed by Imagitec Design and published by Atari Corporation for the Atari Jaguar. It is the third entry in the Bubsy series and follows the protagonist through a realm of corrupted fairy tales after Mother Goose is captured. The game was produced by Faran Thomason and received mixed reviews, with sales below 9,000 copies by early 1995.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Imagitec Design
- Publisher
- Atari Corporation
- Producer
- Faran Thomason
- Designer
- Jody Cobb; Mark Hooley
- Programmer
- Andrew Seed
- Artist
- Colin Jackson
- David Severn
- Rick Lodge
- Steve Noake
- Composer
- Alastair Lindsay; Kevin Saville
- Series
- Bubsy
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales is a side-scrolling platform game. The player controls Bubsy, an anthropomorphic orange bobcat, through 15 levels divided into five chapters, each themed after a different fairy tale: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Jack and the Beanstalk, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, and Hansel and Gretel. The plot involves Bubsy venturing through Fairytaleland to restore order after Mother Goose is captured by Hansel and Gretel. Players maneuver Bubsy by jumping and gliding, collecting Bubsy Balls for points and extra lives. The player starts with nine lives; a life is lost if Bubsy touches an enemy or enemy attack, falls into a spiked pit or water, falls from heights without gliding, is crushed, or runs out of time. Bubsy can take only one hit before losing a life. Enemies and bosses are themed to their respective fairy tale and do not respawn after being defeated, even if the player loses a life. More lives can be earned by collecting numbered t-shirts, but the game ends when all lives are lost, though a continue item allows the player to resume from the last level.
Development
Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales was created by Imagitec Design, a Dewsbury-based developer founded in 1986 that had previously worked on The Humans and a Jaguar conversion of Raiden. Faran Thomason of Atari Corporation produced the game; he had worked on Jaguar titles such as Cybermorph. Programmer Andrew Seed handled the coding, with additional support from Karl West, Martin Randall, Nigel Conroy, and Trevor Raynsford. Jody Cobb designed the game and acted as level designer alongside Mark Hooley; Seed, David Severn, and Steve Noake provided additional design. Severn and Noake, along with Colin Jackson and Rick Lodge, handled artwork. Game artist Shaun McClure drew some enemies but went uncredited. The soundtrack was composed by Alastair Lindsay and Kevin Saville. In 1993, Accolade signed an agreement with Atari to become a third-party developer for the Jaguar, licensing five titles including Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind. The original plan was to port that game, but during development it was decided to create an original title because the first game was already old on the market. The game used the original source code ported from Sega Genesis supplied by Accolade as a basis. It was made more difficult than previous Bubsy entries to cater to both younger and older players, as playtesters were used to the extreme difficulty of games at the time. Thomason stated the marketing and production budget was fairly limited.
Release
Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales made its debut at the 1994 Summer Consumer Electronics Show. Its final name was revealed in a promotional video Atari sent to retailers on November 14, with a December release window advertised. The game hit North American shelves that December, followed by a European launch in January 1995. In Spain, Products Final handled distribution, while Japanese retailer Messe Sanoh took charge there. This title was the sole Jaguar release among the five games from the Atari-Accolade partnership. Decades later, in 2025, it saw its first re-release as part of Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection, available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X and Series S.
Reception
Critics were split on Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales. According to internal Atari Corporation records, fewer than 9,000 copies had been sold by April 1, 1995, though Arnie Katz's book Inside Electronic Game Design claims that 50,000 of the 60,000 copies produced moved in the first six months. Manny LaMancha of GamePro described a "muddled mix of good and bad ingredients," pointing to colorful visuals paired with jerky animation, decent music undercut by raspy sound effects, inconsistent controls, and unreliable collision detection. Martin Weidner at Mega Fun praised the level design and world size but agreed the controls felt sloppy and the collision detection imprecise, while the high difficulty proved frustrating. Player One's Sami Souibgui liked the visuals and humor but found the controls hurt playability, concluding it was a nice platformer that failed to harness the Jaguar's power. Daniel Jaeckel of German magazine Jaguar complimented the graphics but echoed complaints about controls and difficulty, adding that non-linear levels and abundant enemies made each chapter irritating. Consoles + applauded the visuals and varied action but felt the gameplay fell short. Electronic Gaming Monthly's five reviewers thought the controls needed refinement, though they praised the large levels, detailed graphics, and sound. Game Players was harsh: "To call this game frustrating is to give frustrating games a bad name. It just goes to show you that some endangered species deserve to be extinct." Robert Bannert of MAN!AC found the world visually uninspired and unrepresentative of the Jaguar's capabilities. Next Generation noted colorful, pleasing graphics but generic gameplay. Play Time's Stephan Girlich called it average, with a difficulty that quickly killed interest. Rainer Fröhlich at ST-Computer disagreed on the visuals, praising the fairy tale world, colorful backgrounds, and Bubsy's detailed animation, but cited poor audio and high difficulty as negatives.
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