What is Mutant Beach?

Imagine an island of idols and mutated creatures run amok. Imagine it in gorgeous color with a pulsing reggae soundtrack (in System-7 land), and you've got Mutant Beach, a cross between an adventure game and an arcade game.

In Mutant Beach, you portray Native Nick, the guy who must save the village from the havoc wreaked by the 12 idols set loose by the Great Idol Mohawk. Mohawk's in a major snit, because his jeweled nose has been stolen. Your task is to find the purloined nose and return it before time runs out. But first you must find the Idol City, talk to the idols, and ascertain what gifts or magic spells they want — then you need to locate these items and deliver them to the proper idol.

The perils and pitfalls are many. To make things interesting, the idols have mutated most of the island's inhabitants into strange new creatures such as a frogadile, a gizmo bird, and a dancing clam. You must either avoid or “bonk" these creatures to prevent them from stealing your hard-earned gifts and spells. You direct Nick to walk, stop, pick up, drop, duck, and bonk, using the keyboard, numeric keypad, or mouse. Status boxes at the bottom of the screen provide feedback — what spells and gifts you possess, your point score, and the time left in the game. An Ask box lets you converse with the idols. After spending several hours finding the items for each idol, you'll be able to get the nose and return it to Mohawk — if you're lucky.

Although Mutant Beach runs on any Mac starting with a Plus (it requires 2 megabytes of RAM, System 6.07 or later, and a hard drive), it's most impressive in color. Each scene is a fanciful, 256-color extravaganza, and the animation and characters are first-rate. The only aspect of the game that may irritate some players is the repetitive nature of the activities.
Whether you're an arcade-game aficionado or an adventure-game addict. Mutant Beach's puzzles, goofy mutants, and cryptic commentary, combined with its stunning graphics and sound, will give you hours of entertainment.

LeVitus, Bob. (June 1992). Mutant Beach. MacUser. (pg. 85).

Download Mutant Beach for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

System Requirements

From Mac OS 6.0

Compatibility notes

• Macintosh Plus or later
• 2 MB RAM
• System 6.0.7 or later

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II