Take a trip back to ’82 with the unfortunately-titled Pooyan, now on Nintendo Switch

What the hell were they on when they drew that flyer?

Retro game enthusiasts Hamster have gone all obscure with us again this week, reaching into their bag of odd classics and pulling out Konami’s Pooyan, now available to download on Nintendo Switch.

Originally released in arcades in 1982, before being ported to several home computers and consoles, Pooyan concerns the escapades of “Mama Pig”, who must defend her litter of piglets (it’s “litter”, right?) from a posse of big bad wolves, who are parachuting in from the trees with the aid of balloons, even though that’s not how balloons work.

It gets better. Mama Pig then must scale a cliff top via a rickety pulley-based elevator, and pop the descending wolves’ balloons with a bow and arrow, sending the hungry beasts plummeting to the ground below. Following this sequence, Mama must rescue any captured piglets by throwing slabs of meat at their captors, while more skybound wolves attempt to push a boulder on top of her… I got nothing.

Pooyan is available to download now on Nintendo Switch.