Öoo is a smart, short and satisfying puzzle-platformer
Bomb Caterpillar mechanics make for a unique means of traversal
Music and visuals serve as the perfect complement
REVIEW
The unassuming but alluringly-titled Öoo is the latest game from NamaTakahashi, who previously released the excellent puzzle-platformer ElecHead. Those who enjoyed that zippy little adventure will find even more to love in Ooo, which follows a similar structure while introducing an entirely new style of traversal.
Öoo puts you in control of a Bomb Caterpillar, which is exactly what it sounds like. The cute little critter is made up of a big circular head and, in the beginning, a single segment that doubles as a detachable bomb. Stuck in labyrinthine hallways (that happen to be located inside a giant winged creature that recently swallowed you) with stationary yellow frogs gating off new sections, you’ll have to come up with creative ways to use your explosive boost to explore the world further.
Like any good puzzle-platformer, these conundrums start off simple enough. You’ll learn to stand atop a bomb to launch yourself upward and reach high ledges, or stand beside a bomb so the blast launches you to the left or right depending on orientation. Things get complicated rather quickly, and another wrinkle is thrown into the mix when you eventually sprout a second bomb segment.
It’s amazing to see how the puzzles evolve with the addition of just one more bomb. After that key moment the world really opens up, and there are definitely some satisfying head-scratchers along the path to victory. Öoo becomes a game of chain reactions, challenging players with the irresistible task of figuring out how to work both bombs in tandem to get your head where it needs to go next.
A single highlight among many is the way Öoo teaches players and rewards lessons learned. You’ll pick up a new technique by necessity only to find a dead end right after. With the power of fast travel, though, you’ll use your ensuing eureka moment to zip back to an earlier section to implement the new technique to open up another area. The magic trick here is that you could have used that move all along; nothing was stopping you outside of the previous lack of contextual inspiration.
One of the recurring obstacles comes in the form of the aforementioned frogs. To get them to move aside you need to feed them a fly, so you’ll then have to acquire a fly nearby and figure out how to get it to the frog. You can’t go past any checkpoints while doing so, because those will slurp up the flies just as quickly as the frogs.
Öoo is one of those puzzlers that just makes you feel smart. The music is consistently catchy, the visuals are cute and minimal and the animations really sell the Bomb Caterpillar’s unique set of moves. At somewhere between two and three hours—three for me, which may speak to puzzles not being my specialty—it’s the perfect length for what it is, too.
Developers Tsuyomi, NamaTakahashi and tiny cactus studio really nailed a game that absolute deserves the “Metroidbrainia” distinction. Öoo is currently available on Steam for 10 bucks, but if you don’t have it already I wholeheartedly recommend bundling it with ElecHead for just five more.
Platforms: PC (Steam) Publisher: NamaTakahashi Developer: NamaTakahashi, tiny cactus studio, Tsuyomi Available: Now
No matter what kind of genre sicko you may be, UFO 50 more than likely has the cure for what ails ya in some form. There are precision platformers, Metroidvanias, strategy-RPGs, JRPGs, idle games, puzzlers, text adventures and more. As a result, your mileage may vary when it comes to any specific recommendations, but I’m going to throw the first one out here like an errant shuriken: Ninpek.
Ninpek is a simple arcade platformer at heart, and it’s an auto-scrolling one at that. Thanks to the nature of its design, you’ll be able to finish it in a fixed amount of time, so getting the trophy is just a matter of quick reflexes and a bit of rote memorization. Getting the cherry—which is the secondary key accomplishment to “beating” any given UFO 50 game—is just a matter of doing that all over again… with some wrinkles in the mix.
The setup is as simple as a fictional ‘80s platformer gets. You’re a ninja and your hamburgers have been stolen. It’s the picnic equivalent of the Ghosts ’n Goblins intro, swapping a sweet hanbaga in place of a damsel in distress. Now you must brave the fierce, pig-filled lands beyond your home and chase down the angry octopus that pilfered your patties.
At first brush, Ninpek is difficult in the way most UFO 50 games are. You’re going to die instantly, probably quite a lot, during your first handful of attempts. Once you learn the enemy patterns, however, it becomes much easier to react on the fly, and I even found my muscle memory kicking in after putting down the game for long periods of time.
Thanks to the straightforward nature of this one—there aren’t a ton of ‘gotcha’ moments outside of discovering how a new enemy attacks—running in place and leaping from one end of the map to the other quickly becomes second nature. Once you trivialize the initial game loop and turn your home screen cartridge gold, you just need to do a second loop immediately after to get the cherry and close out Ninpek for good.
The music and visuals are stripped down but memorable, and you’ll be able to hang with the toughest of ninja once you accept the fact that you can never stop moving if you want to live. Make this your first gold and/or cherry and you’ll be well on your way to getting the hang of UFO 50 as a collection!
UFO 50 has almost been out for a full calendar year—look no further than the excellent Eggplant podcast for those keeping weekly score in a book club format—but it can still be quite the imposing monolith for folks who are jumping in for the first time. Games can be filtered through chronology (relative to the fictional release timeline), assorted in genres that range from “epic play” to “reflex play” and more, so where in the heck should you even begin?
The quick answer is “with Barbuta,” of course. As fantastic as the first chronological entry in UFO Soft’s storied history is, though, its plodding pace and esoteric goals can lead to a quick bounce-off for some, bringing them right back to the question at hand.
Now that UFO 50 is also out on Nintendo Switch, I thought I’d do my best to get everyone started in what I truly believe is one of the greatest accomplishments of game development, indie or otherwise. What Derek Yu, Jon Perry, Eirik Suhrke, Tyriq Plummer and the rest of the team have created is nothing short of astounding, and it would be a shame not to explore it in earnest.
Considering how important those first steps are, I’m going to highlight at least two games in each of the five rows that I consider to be a solid starting point. Your mileage may vary, and the breadth of genres alone guarantees our tastes won’t necessarily align, but I hope it helps you during the nascent steps of your journey.
Stay tuned for the first recommendation, and keep this post in your back pocket as a hub for all the recs to come!
I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple months, and now’s as good a time as any because it’s already April! Last year I read nearly 40 books, which might not sound like much to real-deal bookworms, but it was definitely a high for me. I tried to bounce around genres a bit but ended up sinking most of my time into horror novels. Some of them I truly did not care for, while others continue to stick with me well into 2025.
Thankfully, there were more of the latter than the former last year. With that in mind, I thought I’d put together a quick list of some of my favorites, which, for the purposes of this being my blog, I shall call the Best Books of 2024.
The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister
Appalachian folk horror that’ll make you feel like you know how to tend to a bog and raise a bog wife of your very own. I came to find out what exactly Chronister was going to do with the premise, but stayed for the vivid characterizations of the Haddesley siblings.
Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton
This shouldn’t work for me, but I loved it. If I had known it was a vampire book I might not have picked it up, but Compton took notes from some interesting places—specifically getting vampire inspiration from anime like Blood: The Last Vampire—and went full-bore on the scope.
The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim
Fittingly, this book is a boiler, and one of a few I read in one or two days. Great debut with a gnarly premise and biting commentary.
Play Nice by Jason Schreier
I love stories about creative people collaborating and making their dreams come true, and loved this book despite not particularly caring about Blizzard’s games. It ends up being a fantastic look into how quickly some people can develop fantasy-poisoned CEO brains after pulling in a few million dollars.
Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
I really enjoyed Daphne, so I was eager to find out what Malerman had cooked up for his latest book. This is one of a few last year that played some unique, if questionable, games with formatting and narrative, but the monster in it is so effective it doesn’t matter. Real creepy haunter that has some moments that’ll cut into you.
Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud
I need to read more novellas like this. Balingrud’s first entry in what will eventually be a series takes us to the moon, where the threads of an ancient spider are used to treat mental maladies.
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
I kind of want to live in the searing discomfort of this book’s opening pages. Kliewer sets up an awkward situation that’s nearly impossible to satisfying conclude, but I dig where it ends up going. Increasingly unwelcome guests, impossible architecture and an unreliable narrator made this one stand out among a crowded year.
Mouth by Joshua Hull
Hey, look, another novella, and this one is really fun! It’s a super quick story about a guy that ends up taking over a property with one stipulation: He has to care for a massive sentient mouth embedded in the ground. Knowing more than that isn’t going to help you.
Small Town Horror by Ronald Malfi
Consider me a Malfi-head now, because this was one of the most smooth and satisfying reads of the year. Malfi excels at characterization, breathing sharp and bitter honesty into a former group of friends whose lives collide once again thanks to ghosts of the past that were never going to stay buried in the first place. He’s got another one out this very month, and I have a couple on the backburner I’m looking to dive into soon. Highly recommended to both horror fans and anyone who digs a story about flawed people who find nothing but doom in the mistakes of their youth.
The Queen by Nick Cutter
Hot damn, this one was wild as hell. I know he’s had acclaim in the past for novels like The Troop, but is the first Nick Cutter I’ve read. It definitely won’t be the last. Totally unafraid to go to some bizarre and starkly realized places, this is the antidote to any stories you’ve ever condemned for not peeling the curtain back far enough. It’s the counterpoint to all the monster movies that spent most of the runtime obscuring their marquee antagonists in shadows. It’s about big, genetically-mutated human-wasp hybrids and it does not mess around.
Honorable Mentions:You Like It Darker by Stephen King, I’ll Be Waiting by Kelley Armstrong, I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
Joey Weiser is a cartoonist with some really awesome comics under his belt. From his Eisner Award-nominated Mermin series to Ghost Hog, the upcoming The Littlest Fighter (spring 2025, Oni Press) and beyond, he took some time to talk to subhumanzoids about all the inspiration and work that goes into them. Read on for some insight into Joey’s process, how he got published and more!
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Were there specific comics that inspired you to make your own? When did your interest begin?
I was a big fan of comic strips and superhero comic books growing up, and it was Jeff Smith’s Bone that showed me a melding of the comic strip sensibility and long-form storytelling of comic books that really inspired me to make my own.
I know you’re super into all things tokusatsu and kaiju. What else outside of comics has influenced your work?
Well, I’m a big Japanese film fan in general, and some of that has surely seeped into my work. But the biggest influence I can feel were the TV cartoons of my youth. Rocko’s Modern Life and Eek! the Cat are two that were my real favorites which probably still influence my work. Outside of a few exceptions like The Adventures of Pete & Pete, if it wasn’t animated or didn’t feature creatures of some sort I didn’t have much interest in it.
A panel from Mermin vol. 1
Are you all digital? What’s your preferred media, and what does your comic making process look like?
I do a lot of sketching digitally and I’ve been doing some small work completely digitally, but largely my work is still drawn on paper with pencil and ink and then colored digitally. I have a whole step-by-step guide to how I make comics online, and it’s a little old but mostly still accurate. The big bullet points are that I do a lot of outlines, move to rough sketches, pencil and ink on paper, and then color digitally.
How did you go about getting your comics in front of people in the beginning?
A combination of making zines and taking them to comic shows, and sharing my work online. At the time, online meant like Livejournal and message boards. I went to my first comic show as a creator while I was in college, shared a table with several classmates, and sold / gave away my comics to whoever would take them. I think in the beginning I put a lot more emphasis on getting my work in front of people’s eyeballs than making money. Unfortunately, I still basically hang on to those morals!
When did the transition from self-publishing to professional publishing happen, and what was the querying/pitching process like for you?
Well, self-publishing for me meant printing out mini-comics at my school’s computer lab and then eventually at copy shops. For graphic novels, I’ve been pretty much working with publishers from the beginning. I drew like half of my first graphic novel, The Ride Home, roughed out the rest of the book, collected that all into big mock-ups, and mailed them out to a handful of publishers. I got a resounding, “No thank you,” from most everybody who bothered to respond, but Adhouse Books agreed. And thankfully Adhouse Books rules, so it worked out.
You’ve done short form and long form comics over the years, including a bunch of graphic novels. Do you have a preference for your storytelling?
The nice thing about short form comics is it’s closer to immediate gratification because you get to share them sooner. I like making short comics, but after years of doing graphic novels, it’s often hard to contain a story idea in 4-24 pages or whatever. Lately I’ve been using those opportunities to lean into gag ideas or just try to convey a feeling.
A panel from Dragon Racer, the second in the Ghost Hog series
What’s the hardest part about tackling the bigger projects?
The hardest part about big projects is just how much time it takes. Time when you aren’t sharing your work with more than maybe a few people, time when you feel like you’re not accomplishing anything, and potentially time when you are not receiving a regular intake of income. Writing is also hard for me to estimate how long it will take. Once I get into the mechanics of the art it’s pretty reliable to be like, “It takes me X amount of time to draw a page,” or color a page, or whatever. But writing is a lot more nebulous.
Speaking of graphic novels, you have a new one coming out in Spring 2025. Congrats! How did The Littlest Fighter come to be?
Thank you! Yes, The Littlest Fighteris my new graphic novel, slated for March 2025! It’s essentially about a kaiju who is the size of a human child who wants to battle giant-sized kaiju. This was originally a mini-comic idea I published, obviously inspired by my love of kaiju movies. I tooled around with the idea a bit until it turned into something bigger than the original concept, and brought it to Oni Press who has published the majority of my graphic novels. They liked the idea too, and here we are!
Are there any other projects you’re working on or are you fully honed in on the graphic novel?
My main comics output lately has been doing a monthly strip called Shady Creek. It’s about frogs (and the plan is to expand into bugs and other creepy crawlies) living together and musing about whatever it is that comic strip characters muse about. It runs in Flagpole Magazine, the local free weekly paper here in Athens, GA but I also post it on social media and archive it on my website.
Can you give everyone an elevator pitch on why they should watch every Tora-San movie ever made?
The Tora-san films are a 50-film series, 48 of which came out over a 25-year span, followed by two anniversary films. They basically feature the same cast in the main roles throughout, and you see not only the actors age in real time, but the world around them change as well. So by the end of it, you feel as if this family is your family, and you’ve watched modern society evolve from the late 60’s into the early 90’s (and then even check in again decades later). It’s a truly remarkable thing. And they’re funny! And romantic! And melancholic! And humane! It’s basically everything I want in fiction that doesn’t feature monsters (although there is a kaiju in one of them).
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer these questions! Do you have any advice for anyone out there looking to get into making their own comics (and hopefully publishing them)?
Write and draw as much as you can, and you almost can’t help but improve. Create the kind of work that you want to make, and put it in front of as many people’s eyeballs as you can. Honestly, how to get published is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you, but if you share it with the people, and they can feel your passion, I think something will come of it.
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