Pitfall The Mayan Adventure
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure[b] is a side-scrolling action–platform video game developed by Activision in conjunction with Kroyer Films and originally published in North America and Europe in 1994. The fourth installment in the Pitfall! franchise, players assume the role of Pitfall Harry Junior as he embarks on a journey through the Mayan jungles of Central America in an attempt to rescue Pitfall Harry, his father and the protagonist of previous entries in the series, from the evil Mayan warrior spirit named Zakelua. Its gameplay mainly consists of action and platforming mixed with stage-based exploration using a main six-button configuration.
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure began its development on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and formed part in a string of franchise revivals by Activision along with other games from the Atari 2600 such as Kaboom! and River Raid, featuring sprite-based visuals before Kroyer Films were brought to assist in its creation by providing hand-drawn animations and graphics instead, while the lead platform transitioned from the Super NES to Sega Genesis.
The Genesis and Super NES versions were both released during the 1994 holiday shopping season, and ports for the 32X, Atari Jaguar, PC, and Sega CD followed in 1995, with each one being developed by third-party developers and featuring several changes and additions compared to the original version. Years later it was re-released through download services such as Virtual Console and given a portable release on the Game Boy Advance.
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure was met with mostly positive responses from critics who praised the presentation, visuals, and sound design, but criticized the inability to control the character during certain animations.
Gameplay – Pitfall The Mayan Adventure
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is a side-scrolling action-platform game similar to Disney’s Aladdin and The Lion King where the player takes control of Pitfall Harry Junior across the Mayan jungles of Central America to defeat the evil Mayan warrior spirit Zakelua and rescue his father from captivity. Prior to starting a new playthrough, players have the choice to change various settings at the options screen such as controls and difficulty.[1][2][3][4]
Most of the early stages featured in the game are large, linear in nature, and populated with obstacles, enemies and environmental hazards, requiring the player to traverse the stage by running, jumping, climbing, swinging, shooting or dodging enemies.
Other areas that are featured later are more maze-like and exploratory, making the player take different routes to reach the end. On certain stages, a boss must be fought in order to progress further. All stages contain beneficial items, weapon ammunition to be collected, hidden letters that spell the word “Pitfall”, and other secrets. If Harry Jr. is killed, he respawns on the nearest checkpoint reached but once all lives are lost, the game is over, though players have the option of resuming progress by either using continues or loading their saved game into the last stage reached (depending on the version that is being played), which also keeps the number of lives and items collected through.[4]
The player character can move in four directions. Harry Jr. can fight enemies with his whip or shoot sling stones, boomerangs and explosives. Charging a sling stone for a determined time period allows Harry Jr. to perform a powerful shot against enemies. Harry Jr. can also crouch by pressing both down and the jump button, allowing him to traverse enclosed areas.[1][2][3][4]
Synopsis – Pitfall The Mayan Adventure
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure takes place after the events of Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, where Pitfall Harry had settled down following his days as an adventurer in order to raise his son, Harry Junior, but became a legend among people due to his feats. Inheriting his father’s love for exploration, Harry Jr. grew up to become an adventurer and took on many quests on his own, prompting Pitfall Harry to miss his old adventure days. Both Harry and Harry Jr. embarked on a journey towards the jungles of Central America to find lost Mayan treasures.
After several days, both Harry and Harry Jr. have reached the center of the Mayan empire, hoping to uncover the treasure of Uaxactun. However, as soon as Harry Jr. uncovers the relic, his father is captured by an evil Mayan warrior spirit named Zakelua, leading Harry Jr. to rescue his father from captivity.[1][2][3][4]
Production – Pitfall The Mayan Adventure
Background – Pitfall The Mayan Adventure
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure initially featured a different visual style and was being developed for the Super NES before transitioning to the Genesis with a new visual approach.
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure was initially in development for the Super NES under the title Pitfall Harry: The Mayan Adventure and formed part of a string of franchise revivals by Activision along with games such as Kaboom!: The Mad Doctor’s Revenge and River Raid: Mission of No Return,[5][6][7] both of which were based on their original Atari 2600 entries.[8][9][10]
The three titles were showcased at Summer Consumer Electronics Show in 1993 featuring sprite-based visuals, with early promotional materials and previews for Pitfall Harry touting several features not found in the final release such as underwater and flying sections, as well as 32 stages.[11][12][13]
Despite Pitfall being slated for a Winter 1993 launch, the three titles were delayed to 1994; Kaboom! and River Raid were eventually cancelled for unknown reasons, while the former remained in full development.[7][8][9][12]
Kroyer Films, an animation studio which worked on several projects like FernGully: The Last Rainforest, was later brought to assist in the creation of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure by providing hand-drawn animations and graphics.[7][14][15] The game was showcased at Summer CES 1994, now under its final name and sporting hand-drawn visuals by Kroyer Films, while the lead platform transitioned from the Super NES to the Genesis.[7][15]
Development – Pitfall The Mayan Adventure
Animation – Pitfall The Mayan Adventure
Bill Kroyer and his studio were approached by Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and his partner Howard Marks to produce animation work for Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure after seeing their previous endeavors, as Kotick wanted high-quality animation for the Pitfall project. Although they were seeking multiple studios to be on board, the company settled with Kroyer Films due to its being the only company which hosted ex-Disney animators and was capable of matching Disney’s level of quality.[14]
Activision provided several production materials such as concept art, layouts and storyboards to Kroyer Films in order to define how the main character should traverse the constrained levels, while animation required to be consistent in terms of size.[14]
Kroyer and his company interacted several times with the programming team at Activision, who explained to them how the process would work and later transposed the hand-drawn sketches lent by the studio into pixel art graphics.[14] Kroyer stated that the project proved to be both different and challenging for his team, as the studio needed to draw a high number of actions and poses for the characters to perform in-game seamlessly with multiple frames of animation in order for players to not feel taken out from the experience, instead of scripted sequences as seen with their animated feature films.[14]
During a meeting with Activision’s creative team to showcase test animation and how the process went, a female worker told Kroyer that his team should make the main character younger.[14] Once their task was completed, Kroyer Films was no longer involved with the project, which served as their only involvement with video games.[14] Though Disney’s Aladdin was released a year earlier for the Genesis, Kroyer claimed that neither he and his team were aware of its existence.[14]
Audio – Pitfall The Mayan Adventure
Both the music and sound effects were created by Soundelux Media Labs, who would later collaborate with Activision on MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat.[1][2][3][4]
Release – Pitfall The Mayan Adventure
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure was first released for the Genesis by Activision and Sony Electronic Publishing on North America and Europe in 1994 respectively, while it was released in Brazil by Tectoy in July 1997.[16] The Genesis version has since been re-released through the Wii‘s Virtual Console on 13 April 2009 in North America, then in PAL regions on 15 May 2009 and in Japan on 25 August 2009.[17][18] The Virtual Console re-release was delisted on 26 December 2013 in Japan and at the end of 2013 in North America and PAL regions.
The game has been ported to various platforms, with each port featuring several changes and additions. An extra feature in all versions is the ability to play the original Atari 2600 version of Pitfall!, which is done by finding a secret doorway within the fourth stage.
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