Uin

By: Derek Yu

On: April 20th, 2010

Matt Aldridge, aka “TheAnemic”, aka “biggt”, is best known in the Game Maker community for creating the enigmatic La La Land series of games. In an old interview with Matt regarding the never-released La La Land 6, he explained that the La La Land games “were made after intensively working on another game. I became overwhelmed with the pressure of knowing that I may never finish it. That’s a horrible feeling, especially when you put so much heart into it. These games were like the byproduct of that.” The La La Land games have since become cult hits amongst cult hits, drawing praise from indie developers like Jonathan Blow, Auntie Pixelante, and cactus for their dreamlike qualities.

It’s with that backdrop that we come to Uin, Matt’s first release since La La Land 5 in 2006. Uin is a much more traditional and full-featured game than La La Land, but is still really weird and can be as frustrating as it is surprising. That is due in no small part to the fact that very little is explained about how the game works… whether this is a Good Thing™ or not is up to you, but I’m finding it to be quite enjoyable.

That’s about all I’ll say about Uin. (Note: the download is .zipx, which requires WinZip to unpack. Alternatively, I’ve put up a .zip here.)

TIGdb: Entry for Uin

Outbreak

By: Derek Yu

On: October 31st, 2007

Happy Hallowe’en, folks! We’re bringing you some indie gaming treats, and you may need to know some tricks to get through them! (Groan. Shoots self in head.)

Outbreak is a delicious zombie and alien-themed b-game platformer that features all the usual b-game tropes: rough graphics and midi music. In the game, you play Jack, one of the sole survivors of a viral outbreak on the planet Orcus. The only other (apparent) survivor is a black guy named Carl, who sells you grenades from time to time. ’Nuff said.

The game itself is quite playable, and fairly difficult. I’m quite impressed by the variety of levels, which have you swimming in sewers (think: underwater level from TMNT for the NES) to shooting aliens in the back of Carl’s truck. The massive level bosses are also quite a treat.

If you like b-games, you’ll probably like this game.

(Thanks, wourme! Via The Gamer’s Quarter forums.)