The game ends rather abruptly once you discover uncle Fred. The last level adds on a severe amount of challenge that feels unfair especially since the game is presented as a light-hearted first person platformer. Overall I was impressed by the grapple mechanics, until the last level where there is a noticeable spike in difficulty. A Story About My Uncle also adds glowing symbols to areas where Fred has used his grapple to help guide players along. This game seems designed for speed runners in mind. There is a sense of freedom, flow and creativity to the grapple mechanics that is exhilarating. It’s hard to put into words why the platforming in A Story About My Uncle works so well, so I recommend watching videos of it in action. A Story About My Uncle also adds glowing symbols to areas where Fred has … More The rest of the story is mostly told through narration as you jump from platform to platform. The father journeys towards his uncle’s observatory and is transported to a mystical world where he believes his uncle may have traveled to. One day, the father discovers that his uncle is gone and has left him a crystal powered grappling suit. The father reminisces how he loved his uncle and would visit his home. He decides to tell a tale about his uncle Fred.
The narrative is about a father telling a bedtime story to his daughter. Ironically, A Story About My Uncle doesn’t really tell much of a story and is seemingly just a set of 5 platforming levels that can be completed in a few sittings.
The game has a sense of rhythm and momentum that feels utterly liberating when you successfully jump from platform to platform. A Story About My Uncle helps mitigate these problems by introducing you to a powered high jump, a grapple mechanic and eventually a rocket booster. The genre is exceptionally rare because first person platforming is tricky to get right: it is difficult to judge distance between platforms and see where you are landing. The last time we spoke, he said his next major project was "The Downstairs Bathroom", which sadly didn't turn out to be the genre-smashing domestic sim I'd been hoping for.įollow us on Facebook for discussions, entertainment, reviews, wellness and news.A Story About My Uncle is a first person platformer. Uncle Jon semi-retired from gaming about a decade ago, which is a shame as I always loved him showing me whatever he was working on, usually from within a room littered with computer bits. None ever made it to the printers, strangely. Ill-conceived attempts to launch a major publishing empire from my bedroom would almost always see "an interview with Jon Ritman" as the main article in whatever magazine I was planning. I also went with him to a massive gaming exhibition in London, where I recall Sony was showcasing the first-ever PlayStations. Naturally, I got a copy of Monster Max, and can confirm that it was the best Game Boy game ever, although I failed to complete it (it was devilishly tricky). There were definite perks of having a video game-making uncle. He later moved onto the Game Boy with 1995's Monster Max, which was hailed by the press (one magazine called it "simply the best Game Boy title ever") but sadly suffered poor sales, largely due to bad marketing (so I remember him telling me at the time) despite my cousins and I loudly talking about its greatness whenever in public. Working primarily on the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad, he was the man behind the celebrated isometric puzzlers Head Over Heels and Batman, along with the football simulations Match Day 1 and 2. My uncle Jon, no less, was one of the gaming innovators of his time, the winner of the Golden Joystick Award for Best Programmer in 1987 and lauded for a heap of titles that, while perhaps looking a tad blocky and basic nowadays, were very much among the envelope pushers.
And back then, Ritman was among the leading names of the industry. Things may be all edge-of-the-seat first-person shooters with Hollywood blockbuster budgets these days, but just a few decades ago the video game landscape looked rather different.
0 kommentar(er)
