“One of the limitations of older systems was the limited colour palette. Early systems had a small array of colours with which to draw graphics. This lead to a lot of games, particularly in the golden age of video games, that had bright colours, with lore surrounding the most colourful of light forms – rainbows. Taito was a classic example, with Rainbow Islands, Bubble Bobble and even the New Zealand Story having bright rainbow themes.
These Tatio titles obviously inspired Squeaky Pig Studios – a UK based Indie gaming studio. Unicopia, their first title, features that most rainbowest (is that a word?) of animal – a unicorn.
The game sees you play as a unicorn, and that classic trope of girlfriend being kidnapped by an evil villain. Said girlfriend is a unicorn and villain is a poodle, but that’s by the by. What follows is 45 levels of platforming action. The main story will allow you to unlock the levels as you go through the game.
You’re required to collect three gems hidden on the level. This unlocks a key that bounces across the screen as you play. The levels are either single screen or vertical scrolling in nature (at least they were with how far I got, until midway through world 2). The levels are split into 3 worlds of 15, and after completing each world you get a bit of a continuation of the story, introducing the new world. Each world contains a bonus level with lots of collectables and no enemies. At the end of each world there is a boss to defeat.
After the first two levels – which serve as a tutorial – a timer is introduced. There are two levels of timer. For the first timer to expire the ghost, present on most stages, will spring to life. The Bubble Bobble inspiration continues as said ghost moves like a more modern Baron von Blubba. However, this ghost doesn’t kill you, rather it knocks you around a bit (often into spikes and enemies, which does kill you) and eats the food items still on the level, resulting in your score being lowered. A second time the timer goes off and you get the “Panic Mode”, which speeds up the entire stage, including the enemies and ghost.
After completing a level, you get your score as well as one of two badges. The “speedy” version that rewards you if you complete the level quickly, and the “greedy” badge that you get if you get all the food items on the level. Rinse and repeat 45 times. There are three game modes. As well as the aforementioned story mode there is an arcade mode. The arcade mode removes the story cut-scenes, ramps up the difficulty in that there’s no continues and restarting each level on death. A true mode for serious players. There’s also a “Free” mode that allows you to play any level you’ve unlocked, including a “random” option which is a nice touch.
On to the good elements: the design is gorgeous. Squeaky Pig have a great eye for design with the graphics, in a beautiful pixel art style. There are 3 CRT filters available in the options, which adds a lot to the game’s look. Mix this with a retro chiptune soundtrack (with one exception – the alarm going off), and this is a love letter in terms of style. With it’s pick up and play elements, this game really wouldn’t look out of place in the arcades of yesteryear.
It’s not perfect. The controls, whilst tight, do have a few collision detection issues when it comes to some platforms. I did find I would jump through semi permanent platforms (the ones you can drop through by hitting down and jump) at times, and there is some really tough pixel perfect jumps on the game. From speaking with the developer it is a known pain point, and they are trying to find a solution though (Update: I’ve been speaking with the developer about this, and they have found a solution, however I’ve not had time yet to test the solution).
Although the above can be frustrating, the game is lenient, especially in story mode, as in game saves mixed with a restart at the start of each level, should mean that even the most inexperienced gamers will complete it in a few hours. This is a solid collect em up done in a retro style. The graphics and tunes are excellent. If you can forgive the frustrating elements detailed above, it’s worth checking out on Steam.
Retro Garden was given a code to review this game.