While it won’t have the impact that the release of the finished Amiga game had, the Mega Drive version of Putty Squad has finally been made available to the public a couple of years after the prototype was found. We’ve had a play around with it, and while it doesn’t quite seem to be finished (there are some noticeable graphical issues dotted about), it does seem to have all of its stages and mechanics in place.

For those of you that aren’t up to date with the turbulent history of Putty Squad, allow us to explain. The game was originally developed in the mid-Nineties for the Amiga 1200, SNES, Mega Drive and PC, but of these four only the SNES version ever reached the shelves. However, the Amiga 1200 and Mega Drive versions were made available for review, prompting years of speculation over the whereabouts of the missing versions – particularly amongst Amiga owners, who were starved of good platformers and already in possession of a demo version. Eventually, the Amiga version was found and released as a free download by System 3 over Christmas 2013, to tie in with the release of the remade game on modern platforms.

The Mega Drive game had been reviewed by Mean Machines Sega, and was awarded 90% in issue 32, with reviewer Steve Merrett calling it “one of the most original platformers in ages.” Judging by the screenshots in the review, it would appear that the version leaked online is indeed the build reviewed by the magazine.