Putty Squad

It is Christmas Eve 2013 and Putty Squad has finally been released nineteen years after it was originally reviewed in Amiga magazines with high scores across the board! It is perhaps the most famous unreleased game on the Amiga. Originally due for a release in late 1994 Putty Squad appeared as a demo on magazine coverdisks but subsequently failed to make it to the shops.

The Amiga version of Putty Squad hit the news headlines again in October 2013 when System 3 founder, Mark Cale, made an announcement in a Retrogamer magazine interview. The collectors edition of Putty Squad on the PS4 would include the Amiga version on floppy disk. Practical concerns regarding the mastering of floppy disks aside, there was some scepticism in the Amiga community after so many years of waiting. However, Galahad of the English Amiga Board contacted System 3 with an offer of assistance. As an ex-Amiga game developer and technical Amiga egghead, Galahad proved to have the wherewithal to make the Amiga release happen.

See the System 3 website for the PS4 version of Putty Squad

Amiga Putty Squad can be downloaded from the System 3 website

Codetappers website includes an interview with Galahad and goes into technical detail of how the game was remastered for the Amiga. In short, Galahad used the existing binary files as the basis for the remastered version but referenced the source code where necessary.

Putty Squad is a follow-up to Putty (also known as Super Putty on the CD32 and Silly Putty). Misunderstandings over the versions of Putty have caused many an Internet poster to claim that they have Putty Squad in their possession. Further questioning usually reveals the game to be the original Putty.

In 1998 a publisher called Alive Mediasoft announced the forthcoming release of Putty Squad. However, this company was later discovered to be less than reliable. To add to the confusion, Putty Squad was released on the SNES at the same time that the Amiga version was due to appear. In addition, it seems to have been ported to the Playstation 2 as a budget title (Amazon quoted a release date of early 2006). Re-releases such as this and the trend in the last few years of porting 16-bit games to mobile devices have created issues for the belated and gratis release of games like Putty Squad. Many companies do not wish to have a free version of a game circulating if they are trying to sell it in the shops; things are difficult enough for developers as it is. On the other hand the free release of a game can create a good buzz and goodwill. Perhaps the release of Putty Squad will encourage other developers and publishers to follow suit!

The cult status of Putty Squad is due to several reasons, including the quality of the game. Its a slick platformer that would probably have sold well in the Amigas heyday. The 6 level playable demo has always been available to showcase the gameplay. The full version contains 35 main levels with secret doors that access 19 further sub-levels.

The list of levels is as follows. The level maps can be viewed on the Hall of Light entry.