Top Banana (Game)

Top Banana

GAME » on 1991

Acorn Archimedes (Platform)Amiga (Platform)Atari ST (Platform)Commodore CDTV (Platform)

A bizarre platformer with an environmentalist theme and ties to British rave culture.

Overview

Top Banana is a surreal platformer developed and published by Hex (Company) for the Acorn Archimedes (Platform) exclusively in Europe in 1991, with Amiga (Platform) and Atari ST (Platform) ports released in 1992. Conceptualized by the multimedia pop group Hex (which included some members of the electronic music duo Coldcut) and influenced by rave culture (with some of Hex's members working on VJing software), Top Banana features psychedelic visuals and an environmentalist theme, with the heroine (known as "KT") combating humanity's waste with the "power of Love" so she can seek wisdom in the "Mind-Scape" and become the titular "Top Banana". Similar to Rainbow Islands (Game), players must guide KT upward through each stage through tricky platforming, while launching hearts at various figments of her imagination and collecting fruit for score. Along with its visuals, the game is known for its brutal difficulty, with KT only having one life to complete the entire game (with health only getting restored by collecting hearts of seven different colors, a difficult feat in itself), KT falling down platforms when she gets damaged, and the game having power-downs. As advertised on the game's cover, the game's key selling points are its "sampled graphics" (where most of its graphics are "sampled" from other media in a mash-up), its "cybermix sound" (with an interactive song for its title sequence), its "editable sprites" (with all of the graphics uncompressed and modifiable), and its "recycled packing" (with the packaging being recycled cardboard). The interactive title theme was later expanded on as the hardcore techno song "Global Chaos", which was released as both a record single (with its own music video) and an hour-long VHS music video. Both the Amiga and Atari ST versions are known for a different intro sequence based on the Global Chaos music video (which is notorious for its bright flashing lights) and for a more eye-straining effect for its "underwater" parts (which completely inverts the color palette). The Amiga version also received a Commodore CDTV (Platform) release as Global Chaos CDTV, where it also included a trippy procedurally-generated visualizer for not only Global Chaos, but also for the chill-out B-side "Digital Love Opus 1" and an interactive "Eternal Rave".

Stages

Rain Forest
Metal-City
Temple
Mind-Scape

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