Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a platforming game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was released in 1989 by the Super Entertainment and Total Amusement (SETA) company in both Japan and the US. It is based loosely on the book of the same name by Mark Twain, a.k.a. Samuel Clemens.

The game's soundtrack, composed by Masa Konishi, is notable in that it does not draw upon more than three of the NES' sound channels at any one time.

It is not to be confused with Square's Tom Sawyer, based on the same novel and released the same year.

Gameplay

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer controls like a typical platform game with one top-down autoscrolling level. Tom can move left and right, jump, duck, and throw rocks with a curved trajectory. Most enemies follow a predictable path and can be killed with a single rock throw. Tom can only kill enemies by hurling rocks at them; any contact with an enemy results in death. Defeated enemies will usually drop one of the following items: T-block, skull block, slingshot block, or heart block. Collecting twenty T-blocks gives Tom an extra life; the number of T-blocks that Tom has collected is tracked onscreen. Collecting a skull block takes away ten from the T-block counter. The slingshot block allows Tom to use a slingshot for a short duration. The slingshot shoots rocks along a straight trajectory at a much higher rate than the Tom's normal attack. The heart-block makes Tom invincible for a short time and is noted in game by a change in music. In two levels, Tom can use a pelican or a balloon to fly over his enemies and essentially skip part of the level.

Tom Sawyer is a two-player game. Player two controls Tom's sidekick, Huckleberry Finn. Huck is identical to Tom except he wears a yellow hat, shirt, and shoes instead of Tom's red coloring. The second player takes turns with the first player between deaths.

Plot

Based on Mark Twain's novel of the same name, the player controls Tom Sawyer as he seeks to save Becky from the clutches of Injun Joe. The introductory scene shows Tom daydreaming in school, which allows for the game world where the game takes place. The first level takes place on a steamboat called the "Mississippi Line." Tom must face seagulls, pirates, mice, rats, and octopi on his way to defeating the level's boss, the Giant Octopus. The second level is a top-down level where Tom is on a raft floating down the Mississippi River. Tom must deal with logs, whirlpools, frogs, rock throwing bullies, and other river wildlife before taking on the Giant Alligator at the end of the level. The third level takes place in a forest with snakes, monkeys, grasshoppers, snails, and other beasts of the forest. The final boss in the forest is a giant ape. The fourth level is a haunted house complete with ghosts, skeletons, mummies, and witches. The final boss is a demon. The fifth level takes place in the clouds. Tom faces raindrops, lightning bolts, dragons, a Zeus-like lightning throwing character, and others before he takes on a giant, gun-mounted zeppelin at the end of the stage. The sixth and final stage takes place inside Injun Joe's cave. In the cave he faces crustaceans, snakes, falling stalagmites and icicles, pirahna, and more dragons before his final confrontation with Injun Joe, who shoots arrows at Tom while riding on, what appears to be, the Loch Ness Monster. After defeating Injun Joe, Tom gets three feathers from the fallen Injun Joe and is reunited with Becky. The game's final scene shows Tom awakening from his dream only to find the three feathers he had collected from Injun Joe lying on his desk.

Secrets

• If Tom gets hit by one of the green projectiles shot by the small octopuses in the first level, he turns blue. If he gets hit by a blue projectile while he's blue, he turns back to normal.
• After defeating the witch in the fourth level, Tom can throw rocks at the skull of the Grim Reaper picture and cause a picture of Becky to appear in the mirror, which gives him and extra life.