Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise

 

Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise
Developer(s)	Humongous Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Atari
Release Date(s)	August 19, 2003
Genre(s)	Point-and-Click, Arcade
Platform(s)	Windows 98 - Windows 8
Engine	YAGA
Input device(s)	Keyboard and Mouse

Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise was the final Putt-Putt game released yet. It was released in 2003. In this game, Putt-Putt is voiced by Michelle Thorson.

Synopsis

Putt-Putt and Pep return home from a birthday party. Putt-Putt had the best time at the party while Pep feels depressed about nothing. Soon Putt-Putt discovers that Pep had never had a birthday before and he is not sure when is Pep's birthday. To cheer Pep up, Putt-Putt decides to celebrate his birthday tomorrow, as it is the anniversary of the day he even found him. Putt-Putt needs a way to distract Pep while filling the bag with party supplies: balloons, decorations, a new collar, a cake and a magician's act. He just needs to get everything he needs before the party tomorrow morning. Once Putt-Putt has everything, he needs to set up the party decorations in his house before the surprise.

The next day, Putt-Putt wakes up Pep and receives his surprise party after the cars from Cartown surprised him. While blowing out the candles, Pep accidentally blows the cake frosting onto Putt-Putt's face, (though we sadly don't get to find out what happens after the disaster). They take a lot of photos so Pep will remember his birthday forever.

Characters

• Putt-Putt
• Pep
• Marvin the Marvelous
• Mildred the Mailtruck
• Mr. Baldini
• Mr. Kibble
• Hank the Security Car
• Mrs. Goodbake
• Ms. Widget
• Rover
• Smokey
• Torvil Tractor
• Chuck Wagon
• Clarabel Carista
• Ms. Bundlenugget
• The Cartown Judges
• The Cartown Photographer
• Reginald Winbag III
• Sunshine
• Dalmatian
• Puppy
• The Ducks
• The Bunnies
• Crow
• Bonzo the Cat (cameo)

Items

• Rubber Bands
• Party Planning Bag
• Balloons
• Party Favors and Decorations
• Magician Confirmation
• Dog Collar
• Birthday Cake
• Spicy Taco
• Carbucks Cocoa
• Sugar
• Eggs
• Key
• Apples
• String
• Carrots
• Crystal of Karmic Wellness
• Magician's Hat
• Ice Cream
• Dog Tag
• Milk
• Flour

Mini-Games

• Egg Filling
• Bunny Round-Up

Gameplay

The player takes control of Putt-Putt with the goal of making all the party supplies ready for Pep's birthday and having fun along the way. The game is played by using the mouse to interact with the environment. By clicking on various areas called Click Points, the player can collect items, talk with other characters, and watch entertaining animations. Items are collected to help the player solve puzzles.

Trivia

• In other Putt-Putt games, Putt-Putt's color could be changed, but here when magic wands are used to change his color including invisible, Putt-Putt reverts to purple shortly after.
• This is the only Putt-Putt game without a demo, possibly because it was only released after Atari's takeover along with Pajama Sam Life Is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff.
• In Putt-Putt's thought bubble, there is a flashback footage of him (in his then-appearance) finding Pep in a cave in Putt-Putt Joins the Parade (1992) , the first ever Putt-Putt game to be released, and the first time the lovable purple car is featured, only at the beginning, Pep doesn't come along.
• Some of the music is reused from Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo, as George "The Fat Man" Sanger composed for this game.
• There is a clock on top of the screen to show how much time is left whenever Putt-Putt travels to a different location, but it isn't of much use.
• At the beginning of the invitation song, two clips from Putt-Putt Travels Through Time and Putt-Putt Enters the Race are shown, which are presumably used as flashbacks to a couple of Pep's moments.
• This game breaks the fourth wall a little bit: during the invitation song, someone says that the Marshans are from a previous Putt-Putt game, referring to Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon.
• This is the 2nd time the reviews are mixed in a Humongous game. First it was Pajama Sam Life Is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff. This is because Humongous went into financial trouble after they (and Atari) released the game.
• This game has been criticized for ripping off Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise due to the fact that it had a similar storyline. However, it is likely that it's based on the events of the 2001 book, "Putt-Putt: Race Against the Clock."

Goofs

• When Putt-Putt takes Pep's birthday cake out of his dashboard, his party hat is missing.
• At the fire station, Putt-Putt asks Pep to go play with Smokey's dalmatian. But when Putt-Putt and Smokey talk to each other about the surprise, Pep is really close to them. This is a risky idea because the surprise would have been ruined.
• It's unlikely that brown string would fit on the bottoms of balloons because it's too large. However when Putt-Putt brings it to Reginald, it is smaller and black.
• Hank seems to not have his priorities in order. Instead of being upset that Bonzo has destroyed his ball of string, he is happy enough to thank Putt-Putt for saving him the trouble of "taking it down" when he didn't actually do anything to it. Despite this, Putt-Putt was able to obtain the string anyway.

Gallery

Title card

A flashback from Putt-Putt Joins the Parade.