The Adventures of Fatman, also called The Adventures of Fatman: Toxic Revenge is a superhero parody Adventure Game, developed and released by Michael Doak and Socko Entertainment in 2003.
Fatman is the defender of the city of Shadowlawn, a city with little to no crime where it's pretty boring to be a superhero, until a botched act of corporate sabotage results in the destruction of Acne Labs, giving birth to a mutant supervillain. Now it's up to Fatman to investigate the explosion, track down the culprit, and save the city from a horrible fate.
It was created with the Adventure Game Studio engine and is notable for being the first commercial game ever created with that engine. Following Socko Entertainment's closure, the game was released for free as "abandonware". In 2007, an enhanced edition with voice acting was released and re-sold. It is currently published by Screen 7 and is available to purchase here
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At one point a sequel, "Save Our Superheroes", was in development, and seemed as if it would've had a Maniac Mansion-style twist of controlling a group of characters with different abilities. In 2020, a sequel, Intergalactic Indigestion, did arrive.
This game provides examples of:
- Amusing Injuries: In the sequel, after meeting an Expy of Green Lantern, Fatman has to find a way to recharge his depleted ring. This involves having Fatman be zapped by lasers from security robots enough times.
- Artistic License – Biology: To protect himself from Toxicman, Fatman drinks Chrlorine, which nullifies the effect of Toxicman's toxic goo. Chlorine is very poisonous and in reality, drinking it from the bottle is a bad idea.
- Asshole Victim: The first people Toxicman mutates are the boss and his henchman at Mary Kate Cosmetics, the same people who planned the Acne Labs explosion, and attempted to kill Toxicman, leading to his mutation. It's hard to feel sorry for them.
- Bad Boss: The Mary Kate Cosmetics boss, who plans to kill two birds with one stone by having Fred Stancowitz plant explosives in a rival company's headquarters, and rid himself of an unreliable minion by blowing up the building with Fred still inside.
- Bag of Spilling: At one point, when Fatman needs to disguise himself, he takes the opportunity to throw out all the inventory items, and saved locations, that he won't need for the rest of the game.
- Batman Parody: Obviously.
- Big Ball of Violence: Happens during Fatman's fight with Toxicman, since it's a point-and-click game.
- Big Eater: Fatman, obviously, and there are numerous jokes throughout the game about his massive appetite. The snack cake dispensers in the Fatmobile are empty, he's locked his fridge with chains, and how he sees a poster in a villain's apartment that you won for eating a large number of super-size meals (and how Fatman has twenty just like it).
- Blow Gun: Fatman makes an improvised Blow Gun out of a flashlight tube to fight Toxicman's mutants with.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Toxicman - when he realizes he got mutated, literally the first thing he says is that he always wanted to be a supervillain.
- Clothing Damage: At the end of the game, after escaping Toxicman's explosion, Fatman appears in the Fatcave in a badly torn-up suit.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The boss at the Mary Kate Cosmetics company is more than willing to blow up his competitors' facilities and have his own employees killed in the process.
- Difficulty Levels: The first game offers an "easy mode". All that means is if Fatman gets killed, the player can restart right where they were without having to load a saved game.
- Disproportionate Retribution
- When delivering a pizza to the gangster Itchy Eddy, he'll shoot you dead if the pizza arrives cold.
- The police officer that blocks off Acne Labs during the explosion investigation will only give one warning if you try to cross the barricade before he shoots.
- The Dog Bites Back: The Mary Kate Cosmetics boss sets off the Acne Labs explosion, planning to kill his henchman who set the bombs inside. Said henchman survives to become Toxicman and comes back to the Mary Kate Cosmetics office for revenge. The boss makes a failed attempt to kill him again, and as a result, Toxicman turns both the boss and his henchman into his mutant slaves.
- The Dreaded: Itchy Eddie, who kills people just for a slight like delivering a cold pizza. He's so notorious, Fatman has his address memorized.
- Duct Tape for Everything: Fatman has some duct tape that he uses a couple times, such as for fixing a printer and attaching a bomb to a door.
- Eek, a Mouse!!: Fatman tries to use Harvey the Hamster to distract Robin, the receptionist at the Wrent A Wreck. She initially screams and gets behind the desk, but when Fatman asks her if she fainted, it turns out she's just looking for something. She comes out with an automatic rifle and uses it to try and kill the hamster.
- Guide Dang It!:
- The enhanced edition had a fairly nasty change made to its endgame. In the original version of the game (that is, the one with any walkthroughs at all written for it), Fatman automatically takes an action to make himself immune to the villain's power. In the enhanced edition, the player has to do it deliberately before the fight, or they'll die. Players following the outdated walkthroughs might not figure it out, especially since what you're supposed to do (drink chlorine), is counterintuitive to say the least.
- That you're supposed to use a flashlight you find, not to light up a dark area, but to take it apart and use it as a makeshift blowgun.
- Figuring out the one and only way the game will let you change clothes by clicking the icon for your different outfit on a phone booth outside one specific restaurant. There's nothing stopping you from doing that inside your armored hero vehicle, like Batman has done semi-frequently, or in your secret hideout. The game will only let you do it that one way, though.
- Sometimes when you run into a new obstacle, what happens in response is a new destination appears on the list of places you can drive in the Fatmobile. You aren't actually told when that happens, you're just supposed to look at the list and tell for yourself that there's a new one. For instance, a cop tells you to run an errand and get him some donuts, so a donut store appears on the list, but that's really early in the game and the list is still really short so you're very likely to notice. Not so much when the bouncer at a punk club refuses to let you go in wearing a superhero costume, and if you don't deliberately slow down and look, it may be a while before you notice a clothes store's been added to your list of 10+ destinations, second from the bottom.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: The Fat Computer is this to Fatman.
- I'm Melting!: Toxicman's mutants melt into goo when injected with chlorine.
- Key Under the Doormat: How you get into Fred's house.
- Large Ham: Toxicman at times.
- Last Lousy Point: The usual for a point-and-click adventure, especially since one is for something that seems to have no point: Taking a paper towel with no use from a bar bathroom. The enhanced edition added two more over the regular one You get one of them just for playing the game in "hard" mode.
- "L" Is for "Dyslexia": The receptionist at the South Water St. apartment claims to be dyslexic, and as a result, gives Fatman the wrong apartment number.
- Long List: At Doughnut World, you can ask for a number of different kinds of doughnuts. The shopkeeper always answers that they're sold out, only suggesting you go to the Quik E Mart instead once you've gone through the entire list.
- Maker of Monsters: Toxicman's main power is his blood turns anyone it touches into a loyal zombie.
- Minigame: You have to beat Pong to advance the plot at one point.
- No Escape but Down: Fatman jumps off the roof of the building to escape Toxicman's bomb.
- Not a Morning Person: Fatman complains when the Fat-Computer wakes him up at noon.
- Percussive Maintenance: Kicking the Pong machine a few times will break it, and make it easier to win.
- Phone Booth Changing Room
- Fatman uses a phone booth to change out of his superhero suit into a punk disguise.
- There's a brief scene of Superman showing up, and coming out of the phone booth, before flying off. Fatman calls him a "Show off".
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Fatmobile has a self-destruct button labeled "End it all".
- Shout-Out
- The captions often say "Holy X Fatman!" in a reference to the line from the 1966 Batman series.
- Fatman's hamster is named Harvey. In The Weird Al Show, Al had a pet hamster also named Harvey, and said show also contained a Batman parody segment named "Fatman".
- Fred has a poster of Spider-man in his apartment.
- Many references to (and a brief cameo of) Superman.
- The enhanced edition has a second score, which goes up by inspecting things that are subtle references to "real" superhero franchises. Including a couple to Batman.
- Slipping a Mickey: In order to get past the officer guarding the Acne Labs ruins, Fatman has to feed him a doughnut frosted with a sleeping drug.
- Something Person: Fatman and his enemy, Toxicman.
- Stuck in the Doorway: Billy Bob is stuck in the doorway of the Big N Tall clothing shop.
- Super Zeroes: Fatman, obviously, who's an out-of-shape, marginally competent crime fighter nobody's impressed by.
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Suspiciously Similar Song: Songs are featured that are very similar to the 1960s batman theme, and the Danny Elfman movie theme. - Take a Number: When Fatman needs help at the Wrent A Wreck, he is asked to take a number. He gets the number 74 despite being the only one in the shop. The receptionist, Robin, says this is because she has 73 other things to do before she can be bothered helping him.
- Taking You with Me: After Fatman foils his plans, Toxicman prepares a bomb in a last-ditch attempt to defeat Fatman, though Toxicman believes himself to be invincible and that he'll survive the explosion.
- Toxic Waste Can Do Anything: Toxicman's origin involves him getting mutated when he's caught in an explosion at a toxic factory. He can produce toxic waste that turns other people into mutants, who are obedient to him.
- Updated Re Release: The 2007 enhanced edition, which added voice acting, a second score for tracking easter eggs, and a change to a puzzle in the endgame.
- Villain Decay: Toxicman shows up briefly at the end of the second game, but he's defeated with no player input at all.
- Water Source Tampering: Toxicman plans to dump his toxic waste into the city's water supply.
- Wire Dilemma: One puzzle involves Fatman needing to disarm a bomb by cutting the wires in the right order.
- You Have Failed Me: The boss at Mary Kate Cosmetics tries to kill a henchman, Fred, who had failed him previously. He sent Fred to plant explosives at Acne Labs for a corporate sabotage scheme, and the boss blows up the explosives before Fred can escape. Though this doesn't actually kill him, and instead turns him into Toxicman.
