Vinyl Goddess from Mars is an oft-forgotten MS-DOS platformer released in 1995. Originally planned as a sequel to Epic Mega Games' Jill of the Jungle at one point during development, Epic was not pleased with the quality of the game and opted to publish Jazz Jackrabbit at the time instead. The game was then picked by Six Pound Sledge Studios with some changes here and there, and published by Union Logic Software Publishing, Inc..
Set in the year 200 Billion, the plot follows our scantily-clad heroine, Vinyl, on her way to an intergalactic B-Movie convention when a sudden meteor shower throws her ship off course. Vinyl ends up crash lands into a strange planet, where you must help the lovely goddess find her belongings before it's too late to reach the convention in time. The game is split into three episodes, with the first episode being released as shareware, where the goddess wanders around in exotic locations and fights against off very odd enemies.
Debra Dare, winner of Miss Nude Universe of 1993, also modeled for the box cover art, introduction screen, and pin-up poster.
This game features examples of:
- Action Girl: Once Vinyl finds a weapon, she can fight the aliens stopping her from collecting her belongings.
- Art Evolution: Compared to its predecessor, Vinyl Goddess from Mars is a step up in terms of visuals, going from rudimentary 8-bit graphics to simplistic 16-bit ones, with more fluid animations and graphical fidelity.
- Attract Mode: Clicking the "Demo" from the main menu will play a short demo of one of the earlier levels of the game.
- Checkpoint: The signposts in each level will let you resume from that point on if you loose all of your HP.
- Controllable Helplessness: Without a weapon, you only have two options: running and jumping.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: If Vinyl dies, she gets sent back to the beginning of the level or to her last check point. No loss of points, no loss of weapons, no Respawning Enemies, you just get sent back to the beginning.
- Difficulty Levels: When you start an episode, you have these difficulty levels: Easy, Moderate, and Hard.
- Episodic Game: There are three episodes to this game.
- Excuse Plot: Vinyl was trying to get to a B-Movie convention when her ship crashed, and now she has to gather the parts together.
- Jump Physics: The jump physics are almost like Mega Man's; you can change the direction of your jump and where you are facing in mid-jump, but your jump height is fixed.
- Life Meter: A vertical gauge next to Vinyl's portrait. She has 10 HP.
- Made of Iron: Vinyl can take 10, count 'em, 10 hits before she has to restart the level.
- Ms. Fanservice: Vinyl, whose outfit solely consists of a leotard and thigh-high stilettos.
- Protagonist Title: Guess who's the main character.
- Recycled In Space: The game is basically Jill of the Jungle IN SPAAAAAAACE.
- Scoring Points: Collecting fruits, gems, and accessory capsules earns you points. At the end of a level, you are rewarded bonus points for the accessory capsules you collected.
- Sexy Packaging: You have the winner of Miss Nude Universe of 1993 as Vinyl gracing the package.
- Shareware: The game was released under this business model with the first episode being available for play.
- Spikes of Doom: Spike pits and spike traps that shoot out from the ground are the norm for a platformer such as this.
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Spiritual Successor:- Vinyl Goddess from Mars was supposed to be a sequel to Jill of the Jungle but Epic Mega Games didn't like the quality how it was turning out, so another developer and publisher rescued it.
- The title is Shout-Out to Leather Goddesses of Phobos.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The game takes places 200 billion years into the future.
