Is Attack of the Mutant Penguins on Steam?

No. Attack of the Mutant Penguins is not distributed on Steam, so there is no Steam Charts or SteamDB player count for it. Its live popularity is tracked here via Twitch viewership instead.

What platforms is Attack of the Mutant Penguins on?

Attack of the Mutant Penguins is available on PC (Microsoft Windows), DOS, Atari Jaguar, MS-DOS.

When did Attack of the Mutant Penguins release?

Attack of the Mutant Penguins was first released on December 1, 1995.

Attack of the Mutant Penguins

Dec 1, 1995PuzzleStrategyArcadePC (Microsoft Windows)DOSAtari JaguarMS-DOS

Attack of the Mutant Penguins — frequently asked questions

Is Attack of the Mutant Penguins on Steam?: No. Attack of the Mutant Penguins is not distributed on Steam, so there is no Steam Charts or SteamDB player count for it. Its live popularity is tracked here via Twitch viewership instead.
What platforms is Attack of the Mutant Penguins on?: Attack of the Mutant Penguins is available on PC (Microsoft Windows), DOS, Atari Jaguar, MS-DOS.
When did Attack of the Mutant Penguins release?: Attack of the Mutant Penguins was first released on December 1, 1995.

About Attack of the Mutant Penguins

In the distant galaxy of Bleurggh, an evil (but reasonably stupid) band of aliens picked up some of Earth's television signals. Unfortunately for them, they could only tune in a wildlife program. They figured the Earth would be a pushover to invade, so they disguised themselves as its inhabitants -- penguins! Word of the invasion has reached those champions of intergalactic do-goodery, Bernard and Rodney. Now, with their help, you must prevent the alien mutant penguins from triggering the Doomscale and destroying the Earth. Are you up to the challenge?

Summary via IGDB.

Attack of the Mutant Penguins on Wikipedia

Attack of the Mutant Penguins is an action-strategy video game developed by Sunrise Games and published by Atari Corporation for the Atari Jaguar in Europe in December 1995, and North America on March 15, 1996. A port titled Mutant Penguins was released in 1996 by GameTek for MS-DOS. The plot follows Bernard and Rodney, intergalactic heroes defending earth against alien invaders disguised as penguins. The player must dispatch the alien penguins before they reach a doomsday weapon, in the form of a weighing scale. Earth also has real penguins, who help the player by fighting the aliens and counteracting their weight on the scale.

Source: Wikipedia (text under CC BY-SA 4.0).

Game details

Platforms: PC (Microsoft Windows), DOS, Atari Jaguar, MS-DOS
Developer: Sunrise Games
Publisher: Atari Corporation
Game modes: Single player
Themes: Action, Comedy

Details via IGDB.

Every version compared

Prices, contemporary reception and the studio credited for each release

Platform	Year	Loose	Complete	Sealed	Period reviews
Atari Jaguar	1996	$68	$249	$255	6 reviews

Also released on: PC (Microsoft Windows) · DOS · MS-DOS. We haven’t priced or authenticated those versions yet.

Collector value & authenticity

Atari Jaguar · PriceCharting sold data · Verified 2026-07-24

Loose

$68

Complete

$249

Sealed

$255

Region: NA+EU
Released: 1996
Authenticity: Med

Never re-released — the original cartridge is the only way to playMedium counterfeit risk

Atari Jaguar prices, all games & how to spot a fake

Tower defense before the genre had a name, starring alien penguins and a doomsday weighing scale.

Aliens invade Earth disguised as penguins, marching toward a giant scale — the Doomscale — and if enough pile on, the world ends. You intercept them while Earth's real penguins fight back and add their weight to the other side. Genuinely original: somewhere between a platformer and tower defense, years before tower defense was a recognized genre.

The revealing detail: this came from Atari's European development centre, established January 1995 to court independent studios, with an explicit brief to prioritize unique gameplay over showcasing the hardware. After three years of "Do the Math," Atari's own European arm had concluded the bit-count argument was lost. They were right — and it was 1996, and the console was already dead.

How it was made

The Jaguar conversion's studio is not separately credited in the sources checked. Sunrise Games is credited for the original version, but on this era's ports the Jaguar conversion was frequently done by a different team — see the per-platform credits below before attributing it. Credited: designed by Dan Cartwright, Paul Hoggart, Wayne Smithson; programmed by Mark Robinson, Paul Hoggart, Wayne Smithson; art by Andrew Hanson, Dan Cartwright.

Developed by Sunrise Games of Leeds — formerly WJS Design, and founded as Smithson Computing by Wayne Smithson in 1982 — for Atari Corporation's European development centre. Cartwright led the art with Andrew Hanson on backgrounds, assisted by Dan Hunter and Robert Brearly. Attention to Detail provided the audio engine and Cogent Productions the music and sound effects; no composer is individually credited.

What the press said at the time

Computer and Video Games	#170, January 1996	58/100
Game Informer	#33, January 1996	5.75/10
GamePro	#82, March 1996	88%
Mega Generation	#28, February 1996	79%
ST Format	#83, June 1996	90%
Video Games (DE)	#51, February 1996	60%

Cartridge & preservation record

Cartridge ROM capacity 16 megabit (2 MB), measured from the preserved cartridge image.

Cartridge data from the No-Intro preservation database (metadata only — names, sizes and checksums, no game data).

How the Atari Jaguar version differs

The Jaguar cartridge is the original release; the MS-DOS conversion that followed drew much the same reception.

Also on other platforms

MS-DOS

How the other versions reviewed

MS-DOS	CNG	8/10
MS-DOS	PCG	70%
MS-DOS	PCZone	26%

These are the other versions’ scores, not this one’s. Ports of this era were frequently built by different studios, so they do not transfer.

Worth knowing

Atari's European studio was run by two men in their spare time. This was one of the first projects out of Atari Corporation's European development centre — a division set up to commission games for the Jaguar from independent studios across Europe. It was co-produced by Alistair Bodin and Darryl Still, both of whom ran that development centre outside their working hours. Atari invited studios to pitch concepts and picked this one after a presentation from Sunrise Games.
From a Leeds studio founded in 1982, with a future BioShock artist on it. Sunrise Games began life as Smithson Computing, founded by Wayne Smithson in 1982, and traded as WJS Design before this. Smithson grew the team around the project; Mark Robinson joined from Superior Software after answering a job advertisement in a computer magazine. Junior artist Dan Hunter, working on one of his first games, went on to BioShock 2 and Dark Sector. No composer is credited at all — Attention to Detail supplied the audio engine and Cogent Productions the music and sound effects.

Before you buy

Scarce — a March 1996 NA release months after Atari internally abandoned the platform. Rights are held today by Piko Interactive (relevant for IP handling). The 1996 DOS port ("Mutant Penguins") is a different product.

Authenticity & condition — Atari Jaguar

Specific to the format this title shipped in

Buying a Jaguar cartridge

Cartridges are the durable half of this library — the risk is provenance, not decay. The platform has an active post-commercial scene, so the question is usually which era a cartridge is from rather than whether it still works.

Ask for a photo of the label edge and the cartridge back. Reproductions are usually printed on adhesive photo stock and sit proud of the label recess.
Donor shells are the common trick: sanding marks on the back, or adhesive ghosting where an older label was lifted, are the strongest signals.
Cartridges are region-free on this platform, so a cheaper PAL copy plays on a North American console — a price difference is not evidence of a fake.