Saga of Sins
Saga of Sins
Game
Game2022
Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum
Developer Retrotainment Games, Digital Eclipse
Garbage Pail Kids are back in this Long-Lost, All-New platforming adventure. Featuring four playable characters, six secret-filled levels, and a trading-card system, Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum is a throwback to the golden era of 80s gaming. From the Steam store page
96 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 2, 2026 · last updated Nov 2, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
88
LovedLoved
42 positive · 6 negative
95% range 75–94%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 42 | 6 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 5 | 1 | 28 |
| Mastodon * | 5 | 0 | 8 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 1 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Positive
43 of 49 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
88% recommend · 42 yes, 6 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 48 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (47 of 53 positive).
Players praise the game as a faithful and fun NES-style platformer that captures the spirit of Garbage Pail Kids. [1][2][3] Some reviewers note the game's short length and limited replay value. [4][5] A few players criticize the controls, camera, and lack of explanation. [6][7]
Liked
Representative posts
- [15]
Bought the game as a Steam key, installed it, it launches, it shows the developer and publisher info... and then just stays at a black screen. There's no way to get to the actual game. And the game hasn't been updated in a long time so there's liltle chance of a fix. If you buy it, don't be like me. Nab it on Steam, test it immediately. If it doesn't work, just refund. Edit: Figured out the problem: Having either …
- [1]
Congrats to Retrotainment Games, Digital Eclipse, Iam8bit, and Topps for finally giving us a Garbage Pail Kids game. The game may be based on Garbage Pail Kids, but it is actually a hidden gem. You'll hurl over the grotesque characters of the GPK universe but not the rock solid and addictive gameplay. It has that nostalgia goodness that the NES kids back in the day will appreciate but sensible and clever gameplay …
- [3]
Nailed it in every category. An actual NES game from the era wouldn't have been this faithful to the property. And the looks, sounds, and difficulty will make you believe you're actually playing a forgotten 8 bit game. Bonus materials are generous, and even include a new GPK movie! This is how you do neo-retro.
- [8]
As a guy who collected GPK cards in 4th grade this game is amazing! Feels like unearthing a hidden gem from the 80's at a game stand at the swapmeet. Emulates the NES difficulty well without being cruel or unfair. They nailed the tone of the cards too! This game needs more eyes on it!
- [6]
only if you're a fan of NES-style janky platformers The game is really rough and shouldn't be played unless you have a bit of masochism and are attracted to platformers that are hard because of bad maniability. It's made 100% in NES constraints and I don't know if it's an actual ROM or not but it sure looks like one. There is some nice pixel art with some very nice set pieces here and there, but it's spoiled by the …
Summarised from 34 of the 95 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 13, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum talk about faithful to the GPK franchise and NES era; those who didn't talk about short game with little replay value. Which matters more to you?
Reactions
60 of 96 · most liked firstthe Cowboys should have to play an entire game dressed as the Garbage Pail Kids
neutral · AI labelView post →a charming thing about Warhammer 40k is that it started as a board game with extremely goofy little figures and then they expanded the lore over decades, so it's like trying to turn The Garbage Pail Kids into the Iliad with a book that starts "Seymour Butts pensively surveyed his broken kingdom,
neutral · AI labelView post →Congrats to Retrotainment Games, Digital Eclipse, Iam8bit, and Topps for finally giving us a Garbage Pail Kids game. The game may be based on Garbage Pail Kids, but it is actually a hidden gem. You'll hurl over the grotesque characters of the GPK universe but not the rock solid and addictive gameplay. It has that nostalgia goodness that the NES kids back in the day will appreciate but sensible and clever gameplay that more modern gamers come to expect. This game is on the easier side overall…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Live!!! Let's play this Garbage Pail Kids game! Lol 🔥🦉🔥 Twitch.tv/WhatsHerFace
neutral · AI labelView post →Garbage Pail Kids is what the Nes was missing all these years. How this did not come out in the 80's blows my mind. This game was well worth the wait fantastic game. It really feels like it is a game from the Nes era for sure. If you love the Nes or GPK or good fun games in general pick it up will not be disappointed.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is trash. Glorious, glorious trash.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nailed it in every category. An actual NES game from the era wouldn't have been this faithful to the property. And the looks, sounds, and difficulty will make you believe you're actually playing a forgotten 8 bit game. Bonus materials are generous, and even include a new GPK movie! This is how you do neo-retro.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →where were you 30 years ago?!??!? better late than never
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bought the game as a Steam key, installed it, it launches, it shows the developer and publisher info... and then just stays at a black screen. There's no way to get to the actual game. And the game hasn't been updated in a long time so there's liltle chance of a fix. If you buy it, don't be like me. Nab it on Steam, test it immediately. If it doesn't work, just refund. Edit: Figured out the problem: Having either Steam Input *or* the Steam Overlay active will cause this black screen.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's from the same people who made that new Garbage Pail Kids game that was on GDQ a few months ago! They've definitely got a better handle on NES hardware than most studios had back in the day.
neutral · AI labelView post →The game that's been missing from our lives and we didn't know it. As a NES game it excels, similar to late era NES games in its look and variety. Huge bosses, The levels are each unique, and the whole thing is true to the spirit of Garbage Pail Kids. The card trading feature is a cool extra bit of gameplay, and the PC features like rewinding gameplay and saving were welcome. I can't wait to own/play the physical cartridge.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yeah, the weird thing about this ad was never that it was *unusually* gross for the time. Rather they were actually trying some "tried and true" marketing in a game where it doesn't fit. EB has a tiny bit of grossness but the ad makes it sound like a Garbage Pail Kids game or something
neutral · AI labelView post →Fun mix of Garbage Pail Kids nostalgia and NES goodness. Rather than imitating the era Shovel Knight-style, Retrotainment Games and Digital Eclipse decided to go one step further and make a whole new NES game. GPK nicely combines those old games with some newer sensibilities and ideas. Luke's vomit attack arcs downward to hit lower enemies, sticks around as a damage trap, and even drips down through platforms to reach lower levels. Mad Mike does extra damage at the cost of range. Leaky…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As a guy who collected GPK cards in 4th grade this game is amazing! Feels like unearthing a hidden gem from the 80's at a game stand at the swapmeet. Emulates the NES difficulty well without being cruel or unfair. They nailed the tone of the cards too! This game needs more eyes on it!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Today's #tarot is the Official Garbage Pail Kids Tarot, and today's #blog is me focusing on a very underappreciated part of game development: Documentation and format rules. wanderingskylark.com/learn-greeti...
neutral · AI labelView post →We Kid You Snot! Our game Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum is 40% Off for a Limited Time on Playstation! Published by our friends iam8bit! store.playstation.com/en-us/concep...
neutral · AI labelView post →Fun little NES platformer with distinct levels and characters to play as. The 10 minute animated short was a cute bonus
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There was a stick of gum in the ~~Sour Patch~~ Garbage Pail Kids cards if I remember right. It was only chewable for 60 seconds before it lost flavor and got hard. Kind of ruined the gum thing for me.
neutral · AI labelView post →Having purchased, reviewed and generally been around the guys of 8-Bit Legit since Haunted Halloween 85', I am aware of their love and appreciation for retro and their ability to build a game. I am a couple of hours in to my play time of Mad Mike (between here and Xbox) and I will say that this is on brand GPK. This is truly out there, makes absolutely no sense, and that's what makes it so fun. Fishing in a toilet, a rubber bouncing baby? I mean, GPK was always gross, and to the letter…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I think this might be my new favorite game. It might be gross, but the gameplay is spot-on perfect, imo. Like contra, if you fail, it's on you and means you just need to get good.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →NES version. Please keep it NES Please, no rewind, no unlimited health. Keep it NES hard for the authentic experience. Also, please make sure A is for jump, and B is for attack. Thank you. No tourist mode, pls. P.S. It would of been a perfect game if you had a level unlock once you beat all 6 levels, making the unlocked level the final level. Also, please add an achievement for getting all 39 cards.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →working on a game concept where the enemy naming pattern is heavily inspired by Garbage Pail Kids. mainly looking for names with something alliterative next to them that implies theyve been fused with something youd find in a landfill 🤔 taking suggestions, brainstorming silly stuff like this is fun!
neutral · AI labelView post →I would be a bit supportive of crazy shit like this, since it looks like 21C Garbage Pail Kids, but, being based off AI-generated memes, you know that card game is nothing but AI content. At least the figures still had a human artist designing the things for mass production, not sure about the copy.
neutral · AI labelView post →For tonight's Quarantine Control on@damagecontrolblog... I wrote about the Garbage Pail Kids game. I liked it. @diosenrab.bsky.social covered Daredevil: Born Again and CWTyger wrote about Love is Like a Cocktail. www.dcgameblog.com/2... #Anime #Animation #VideoGames #TV
positive · AI labelView post →Tonight I'm going retro dumpster diving with Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum. This 80s franchise never had a proper video game, so better decades late than never. I guess. twitch.tv/damagecont... #TwitchAffiliate #TwitchStreamer #Livestream
neutral · AI labelView post →If you see this, post a ghost 👻 There was this one time I felt like doodling all the monsters from the first Dragon Quest game in a sorta Garbage Pail Kids style and it was a ton of fun lol.
neutral · AI labelView post →Plays on the Deck out of the box. Only issue I saw was remapping controls were not reflected in submenus for trading and activating cards. Overall fun game and is made to accommodate all skill levels.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My cousin got me an AWESOME game, Garbage Pail Kids : Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum! I already tried it out and fell in love with it and would love to share it with all of you! be live in just a little bit
positive · AI labelView post →Schedule for May 25 - May 31 : We'll be collaborating with @sinescrow.bsky.social & friends for a game of R.E.P.O., navigating the horrors of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, and finally combine the forces of coworking with the game #Schedule1 (with some great #music vibes included) <3 #twitch
neutral · AI labelView post →As a kid, I had several. Now, I only have a full set of Goonies, some Video City video game cards, and several Garbage Pail Kids. My brother has Raiders, Dragon's Lair, and a few others.
neutral · AI labelView post →Tonight I played through Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum for PC/Steam. A modern retro game based on the 80s cult classic cards and film. This platformer had fun artwork, epic boss sprites, and great music. | twitch.tv/grescokit | #Twitch #ModernRetro #GarbagePailKids #GPK
positive · AI labelView post →I think at this point, pokemon should just make cards to collect like baseball cards or Garbage Pail Kids cards. It's the true fans of the card game that suffers from all this craziness.
neutral · AI labelView post →There's a newer Garbage Pail Kids game on all platforms. I picked it up on my Switch. I actually bought a deck of tarot cards this year. I found out licensed ones are made, and it was Garbage Pail Kids on a store shelf. With four new kids created just for the deck.
neutral · AI labelView post →Luke Puke needs to be put out of his misery
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just to start this is more of a neutral. I really don't know how much this would have sold if released back on the nes but I don't think it would have done very well. First off the nes couldn't really get the grossness of the characters. The game is also kinda bland but again i blame this issue on the limits of the nes style though it does have a few things going for it. I don't know if the manual explains it (it is in the game) but i didn't know once you load onto a level you have to walk off…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →3rd game finished of 2026: Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum. This game has some of, if not, the worst level design if all time. That’s about 2 hours of my life I won’t get back.
negative · AI labelView post →Dungeon Degenerates is a gonzo, heavily replayable RPG-lite game with crazy visuals. As far as age appropriateness, I'd say you can give it to anyone you'd give Garbage Pail Kids cards to, but tweens are probably the minimum for enjoying the medium-complexity rules boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/21...
neutral · AI labelView post →Top-tastic.. Garbage pail kids Is a faithful throwback to 80's style nes platformers of yesteryear. Break trashcans to find and trade cards for power up bonuses. Tourist difficulty you are pretty much done in afew hours. 6/10 Average completion time: 3-4 hours Number of achievements: 18 Difficulty: casual (tourist) Replay-ability: tied to achievements Online playerbase: None applicable
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It’s time to get weird with a very 90s game… that’s right #5MinuteGamer is back with a new episode and this week it’s 5 Minutes with Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale gum. youtu.be/WTJCkZ7m5V0?...
neutral · AI labelView post →Happy Sunday to you all! I will be selling various toys and figures from Funko that I own. This includes The Walking Dead, Horror Mystery Minis, Garbage Pail Kids, WWE, Star Wars, DC, and Game of Thrones. They might be on Etsy, or maybe Ebay. If any of you collectors are interested, hit me up.
neutral · AI labelView post →Our fun run of Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum is now on YouTube. It's a retro-styled indie game, that's more forgiving that most NES games. It was a fun time, though some levels were harder than others. https://youtu.be/-6QCpoiXsJM #VideoGames #ShareYourGames #RetroGames #GarbagePailKids #YouTube
neutral · AI labelView post →https://youtu.be/cZI-gwVdbcg Immediately raising the question of who this game is for the unclear platforming and level design does match that of the NES era but not in a rewarding way.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →#GarbagePailKids pre #gamification ☝️ #MostEightiesThingEver #HashTagGames
neutral · AI labelView post →I feel like I'm the only person in the world who remembers the online Garbage Pail Kids flash game.
neutral · AI labelView post →Bad controls, choppy camera movement, nothing is explained, searched the option to change the camera style but coudn't find... what were they thinking?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Comic Art Review w/ @RenaeDeLiz & Garbage Pail Kids artist, our good friend @BrentEngstrom! Watch it here: youtube.com/RayDillon #Comics #ComicArt #IndieComics #GPK #GarbagePailKids
neutral · AI labelView post →Played a little bit of early morning #GarbagePailKids again. #gamingonlinux #gaming #retrogaming
neutral · AI labelView post →Quick bout of #HaloInfinite tonight. #gaming And some #GarbagePailKids which is a darn neat game!!!
positive · AI labelView post →this game is garbage.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Crazy that this could have been considered too offensive to release considering how much the game market has changed in my lifetime, but i guess Nintendo did attempt to be a family friendly company for most of their history, great game that was almost lost to history, glad it still exists and the short movie that is included is great.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I threw up when i played this game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is fun. The boss battles are cool. I like the feature where you can trade cards with NPC's and the NPC dialog is funny. The level design is good. Highly recommended.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's pretty good.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's bizarre that there is more than one movie adaptation of trading cards. Not a franchise that has trading cards, and not a trading card game - just trading cards. Mars Attacks and Garbage Pail Kids.
neutral · AI labelView post →Its a standard NES platformer and not terribly difficult. Music and graphics are awesome. If you have problems with black screen turn off steam controller input and something else. Just Google it. The R1 button brings you to the save screen in game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don’t even know if PharMor exists anymore, but I remember getting a ton of Garbage Pail Kids, a Yo-Mega yo-yo, a bunch of M.U.S.C.L.E. men, and the board game Shrieks & Creaks there, so just a lot of good memories and that’s why I added it!
neutral · AI labelView post →Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum is a retro-style side-scrolling platformer developed by Retrotainment Games and Digital Eclipse and published by iam8bit Presents that fully embraces the bizarre humor, gross-out style, and arcade-inspired gameplay associated with the classic Garbage Pail Kids franchise. Designed as a tribute to old-school NES platformers, the game recreates the atmosphere of late 1980s console gaming with impressive accuracy while adding enough modern…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The NES is alive and healthy even in the 2020s. If this released in 1989 instead of 2022, it would have been a smash hit. This is like Capcom/Konami levels of quality, and the respect it pays to the Garbage Pail Kids IP is incredible. This isn't just "Oh, this is popular! Give these characters a generic 80s cartoon adventure on the NES so kids buy it!" No, every detail is on point with the humor and tone of Garbage Pail Kids. They even incorporated card trading into the gameplay by making you…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love gpk stickers and was happy to find this game. I would have preferred the whole game in the art style of the stickers not translated into pixel graphics but I get the idea and it works as well. there is an easy mode with infinite lives and there's also a time reversal mechanics so anyone can play through the game and see the levels and bosses. there's some additional content like concept art, a short animation and a short mockumentary. the only thing really missing here are the trading…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Everything about this game is frustrating. If you are looking to get that nostalgia feeling of the wonderful Garbage Pail Kids trading cards from this video game... don't!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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