The Adventures of Willy Beamish

The Adventures of Willy Beamish is a graphic adventure game developed by Dynamix, using their newly developed Dynamix Game Development System (DGDS). It was published in 1991 by Sierra Entertainment. The player takes on the role of nine-year-old Willy Beamish in a humorous graphic adventure that is somewhat of a parody of the adventure genre. The game pioneered the use of in-game graphics drawn to resemble classic hand-drawn cartoon animation. It was initially released for MS-DOS and the Commodore Amiga, and was ported to the Sega CD in 1993. CD versions of the game complemented the in-game text with speech, and included a few other cosmetic changes.

Many of the challenges that Willy faces are typical choices that a nine-year-old boy must make: whether to push his little sister on the swingset (and how high to push her), whether to wash his dad's car, and whether to take his dog for a walk. Making unwise choices can produce negative consequences of various sorts. For instance, if Willy does not wash his father's car, he does not receive his allowance, and cannot buy an item that he will need later in the game. In addition, Willy has a score system called the Trouble-O-meter, a thermometer with "Good Boy" at the bottom and "Cadet School" at the top. Actions that annoy Willy's parents will cause the meter to go up one level, and really infuriating them will cause it to go up more. If the mercury reaches "Cadet School", that's where Willy goes, and the game is over.