Over the last three years, I’ve been attending the Game Developers Conference China. I’ve had the opportunity to sit down and enjoy the creations of many independent developers show casing their work for the Independent Game Festival China. One game for some unknown reason has etched itself in my mind (perhaps because it’s so recent). That game, is Uncle Go!.
Uncle Go!, developed by Leung Kin Fung, an indie developer based in Guangdong province in Southern China, isn’t a pretty game. By all means it’s actually quite revolting, however the one tap feature of the game, and the absurdity of its simple plot reminds me of a simpler time. Also, the enthusiastic catch phrase that Leung screams every time someone says the name of the game really caught my attention. OK, so let’s go… delve into Uncle Go!
Long story short, Uncle Go! is a one tap game side-scroller where “Uncle Go” has to make money. Whenever the player taps the eponymous character, Uncle Go does a high flying kick going either up or down. The point of the game at this point is both collecting as many coins as you can for points ala Super Mario, and kungfu kicking as many pedestrians as you can.
As Uncle travels from left to right cars, bikers, regular pedestrians and fat ladies all come hurdling at Uncle at top speed. Some characters require more than one kick to defeat (the fat lady).
Graphically, Uncle Go! isn’t much to look at. It’s a black and white 8-bit side-scroller. The character designs because of the limited pixel bits look a bit plain, however when it came to designing bosses, it seems Leung went overboard. The tank boss, the one that I battled in the demo was very well done.
On an audio standpoint, the music is very much exaggerated and well fitting for an 8-bit style game. The coin ring is reminiscent of Mario games but the background music is where it’0s at. I’m not a music expert but the sound effects and the music for me made Uncle Go!; they gave me an urge to go faster and kick more people in the head.
Unfortunately, Uncle Go! isn’t exactly finished now — so far there are 2 playable levels and one boss fight. Leung says he should be done with the core game in a few months and that some colour may eventually be added to the monochromatic black and white.
Top photo: Eric Jou/Kotaku
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