Tonic Trouble

About Tonic Trouble

Tonic Trouble (1999) is Ubi Soft Montreal's 3D action-adventure, conceived by Michel Ancel, in which alien janitor Ed must undo the chaos caused when he dropped a mutating fluid onto Earth.

Tonic Trouble in Depth

Ed, an alien janitor aboard the Mothership Albatros, drops a container of unidentified fluid onto Earth, turning the planet into a mutated version of itself. The drunkard Grögh drinks from it, gains powers and conquers the Earth, and as Ed the player must solve puzzles and defeat enemies to gather the tools needed to beat Grögh and recover the container to make an antidote.

Played from a third-person view, Ed explores 3D environments through platforming and portals, armed with a peashooter used in first person. A mad doctor builds new gadgets as levels are completed: the peashooter, a bow tie that lets Ed fly, a diving helmet for underwater exploration, a belt that disguises him as an enemy, and a pogo stick for crossing lava and stomping open trapdoors. Ed jumps, climbs, flies, swims and crawls, and eating popcorn turns him into Super Ed, unlocking kicks and slaps. Thermometers extend his health bar, and a stick beats enemies, flips switches and prises open doors to bonus areas. Fetch quests involve collecting red orbs and other items, and collecting bonus spheres unlocks a secret level.

Making Tonic Trouble

Ubi Soft Montreal developed it and Ubi Soft published it for the Nintendo 64 in August 1999 after several delays, followed by Windows that December. Reviews were mixed, averaging 53 per cent for the N64 and 70 per cent for Windows on GameRankings: critics approved of its controls, music, level design and graphics but criticised its camera and derivative nature, though EGM called it "a tightly developed platformer".