Putt-Putt is a series of children's adventure and puzzle computer games created by Humongous Entertainment. This franchise was Humongous Entertainment's first game series to be developed. They primarily involve clicking to get to a destination, although some sub-quests and mini-games involve the keyboard. The main character, Putt-Putt, an anthropomorphic purple convertible, and his dog, Pep, travel to various locations.

History

Putt-Putt was originally thought up by Shelley Day as a series of bedtime stories for her son, Travis; the first story involved Putt-Putt saving a cat caught in a tree. Child actor Jason Ellefson did Putt-Putt's voice for the first eight of the games. In the next three games, Nancy Cartwright (of The Simpsons fame) voiced Putt-Putt. Michelle Thorson voiced Putt-Putt in Pep's Birthday Surprise. The games are supported by ScummVM and thus can be played on other platforms such as handhelds. Humongous has brought several Putt-Putt and other titles to iOS and Android. In 1997, Humongous made an agreement with Lancit Media Entertainment to create an animated TV series titled Putt-Putt 'n Pals, along with films and home video releases. Ultimately, the deal fell through. Several games from the original series were later re-released by Humongous on Steam in April 2014, alongside games from the Pajama Sam, Freddi Fish, and Spy Fox series. The first two games used pixel art graphics; starting with the third game, the series uses hand-drawn animation.

Games

Humongous Entertainment classified the adventure games as Junior Adventures for kids 3-8.

Customization

Players can change Putt-Putt's color to original purple, red, orange, yellow, green or blue. All colors can be painted on again. This also changes the color of the dashboard in Putt-Putt Enters the Race and Putt-Putt Joins the Circus. In Putt-Putt Joins the Parade and Putt-Putt Enters the Race, each color change costs three coins that can be collected in the game world. In Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise, Putt-Putt's color can only be changed temporarily before reverting to purple after some traveling. His color can also be changed in certain levels of Putt-Putt and Pep's Balloon-o-Rama by using Pep to pop certain balloons tied to paint buckets, then catching the bucket containing the desired color as it falls to change Putt-Putt to.

Availability

Books

Various children's books about Putt-Putt have been published by Lyrick Publishing and Random House. A cassette tape audio adaptation was created for "Putt-Putt's Night Before Christmas".

Reception

The Putt-Putt series received various awards including "All-Star Software Award" from Children's Software Revue, "Reader's Choice Award" from Mac Home Journal and "2000 Best Picks Award" from Choosing Children's Software.