Kang Fu is the only video game developed and published by GREat Effects Development (GREED for short), released in 1996 for Amiga systems. It's a Platform Game in which you control a kangaroo named Klont who has to save little kangaroos from the bad guys across 10 different levels. It was intended as a demonstration of all the various high-resolution colors and images that the Amiga and CD32 in particular were capable of, but it ended up riddled with various problems, most notably with how the game itself was coded.
Remarkably, the game's official website still exists, but it's so virus-ridden that you shouldn't bother searching for it.
This game provides examples of:
- Action Dad: Klont himself. The baby kangaroos are referred to in the ending as his family, and it's up to him to save them all when they go missing.
- Art-Style Clash: The Angry Video Game Nerd said it best:The Nerd: Every character looks like they came from a different shitty game! You fight weird cartoon chickens, dragon guys with axes, umbrellas, giant wasps, Slinkies, and bouncing balls, all on a realistic, digitized backdrop.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The game itself is a meta example; it's designed to show off the higher resolutions and color depths that can be displayed via the Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) chipset used in latter high-end Amigas, including the CD32. However, between this and the game's inefficient coding, the end result is that it's a very memory-hungry game, leading to a potential Game-Breaking Bug on the CD32, and requiring jumping through several hoops to get the game working at all on a stock A1200. The game's manual sums up just how much has to be done
to even get it to go beyond the main menu. - Battle Boomerang: A boomerang (of course) shows up as one of the weapons Klont can use.
- Big Bad: Skull, the massive floating head who you fight at the end of the game.
- Boxing Kangaroo: Subverted. Klont is a kangaroo and the game is named after the Chinese martial art, but the only melee attacks he can use are a basic kick, and an Extendo Boxing Glove as one of his weapons.
- Cool Shades: Klont always wears shades, which are especially meant to accentuate his coolness on the game box where he appears with a smug smile.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: The game has a "Beginner" difficulty setting that starts you off with more stuff — 8 lives, 1 bomb and 12 eggs, in particular — but in return, you can only play the first five levels.
- Game-Breaking Bug:
- Due to a memory leak in the CD32's boot sequence, the game will run out of memory and crash on start if you don't use the below-described workaround in the manual:
CD32: Open door, turn on CD32. Insert CD, but WAIT with closing door till the music has played. Close door and game will boot automatically. Otherwise it will not boot, due to a bug in the CD32 which will not free the memory as it should.- The game also requires a convoluted sequence to run it at all on the A1200/2MB Chip (IE. the more basic) version of the Amiga. This requires resetting the computer, disabling all disk drives and hard disks except the main partition, and choosing to boot up without the start-up sequence.
- GIS Syndrome: The game mostly uses compressed stock images for level backgrounds or background objects.
- Goomba Stomp: Klont can jump on certain enemies to kill them.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: It can take eight and a half minutes just to load the game.
- Mind Screw: The game features realistic backgrounds juxtaposed with more cartoony enemies and foreground objects, which clash and come off as very surreal. In addition, the enemies encountered in the game include slinkies, floating eyeballs, and reptilian warriors.
- Never Trust a Title: Despite the title, Klont doesn't actually use any kung-fu moves, and instead uses various weapons like guns, boomerangs and eggs. The closest the game ever gets to this trope is a very basic kick attack, and an Extendo Boxing Glove being among the weapons Klont uses.
- No Ending: After defeating the final boss, the game cuts to show you Klont jumping around in front of Uluru (Ayer's Rock) with all the baby kangaroos, finishing with the last baby kangaroo you saved going on its way.
- No Plot? No Problem!: It's never stated how or why the baby kangaroos are missing, nor if anyone is even responsible for their disappearance, but it's Klont's job to save them nonetheless.
- Offing the Offspring: The baby kangaroos are stated to be Klont's (many) children, and you can shoot them if you're feeling cruel enough.
- Password Save: The game gives you a password to let you continue after completing the first and fifth level. However, it's not as useful as it could be, considering that the game has only ten stages.
- Pun-Based Title:
- The title is a pun on both the Chinese martial art and the Australian marsupial species' name.
- The Sequel Hook says that the next game will be called Kang Two, though no such game was ever actually released.
- Sequel Hook: The ending says "See you in Kang Two". No sequel with such a title was ever released.
- Strong Family Resemblance: The baby kangaroos all look identical to Klont, just smaller. They even all wear the exact same clothes that he does.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: It is possible to shoot the baby kangaroos you're supposed to save, but doing so will deduct points from your score.
