Smack A Skunk

Smack A Skunk is a small action game in the carnival whack-a-mole tradition, released in 2000 by Ingemar Ragnemalm with Folke and Susanne Ragnemalm. The player swings a mouse-controlled hammer at a parade of pop-up nuisances - junk mail among them - and tries to keep up as the pace climbs.

Gameplay

Ten different objects pop up from holes around the play field. The cursor drives a hammer; a click is a smack. Every miss counts, and the round ends when ten targets have escaped unhit. Speed ramps up the longer the player survives.

Customization

One of the game's distinctive touches is that players can substitute their own images for the ten target objects, turning the game into a pointed personal joke or a gallery of in-jokes for whoever sits down at the Mac.

Authors

Ingemar Ragnemalm is a long-running figure in Swedish Mac shareware, best known for Sprite Animation Toolkit and a steady stream of small action games. Smack A Skunk is one of the family-collaboration entries in that catalog.

Platform

The game targets the late classic Mac OS era, with a light, mouse-driven loop suited to the casual-game audience that the System 7 to Mac OS 9 shareware scene cultivated.