My weird quest to find a lost game
Although the name of the game escaped them, both had a clear memory of how it looked. In the game, you played as anthropomorphised fruit, interacting with other players in a garish 2D environment. The game, they remembered, was linked to a children’s food or drink brand – Fruit Winders or Ribena, perhaps – and the characters were painted with flat, bold colours, complete with horribly clashing blues and oranges.
It was similar to other chat room games of its time, such as Habbo Hotel or IMVU, where there was little point to the game other than to give kids a place to hang out in a virtual space. You’d walk around, follow each other to different rooms, and just talk. One of these rooms was decorated to look like a nightclub and was fitted with a bar, despite being a game clearly aimed at kids. Harry remembers how Fred used to pretend to work behind the bar... More here.
I would love to play Badlands again, this version, but don't fancy the idea of using an Atari STE in 2020. And then I found this which works on a Mac.