The technicolour cartoon platforming of Magic Pockets was an anomaly for The Bitmap Brothers. By 1991 the company had built a reputation for developing exceptional Amiga games with a dark and edgy art style, including sci-fi shooter Xenon and cyberpunk-sport classic Speedball. Greyscale press photos of the collective looking as though they should be in a punk band, replete with shades and leather jackets, only added to the rock-and-roll aura. So when the Bitmaps decided to make what programmer and designer Sean Griffiths described to Zero magazine as “our first attempt at the cutesie platform game”, the end result was always going to be less conventional than that description seemed to imply.
You only need to know the bizarre backstory of to get a sense of thewho’s been gifted a pair of mystical trousers by a “strange old man” according to the game manual. All is well until our hero’s precious toys disappear into the depths of his bottomless pockets. At which point he transports inside his own pockets, as you do, and sets out on a mission across Pocket Land to retrieve his lost playthings.
