Letter day for OU with launch on PC and Switch

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Japanese hand-drawn fantasy adventure available now to download on Steam and the Nintendo eShop

Imagine your life as a literal storybook. It should flow smoothly from one page to the next in a predictable linear fashion. But what would happen if the pages turned out of order instead? This is the dilemma facing the young amnesiac star and his marsupial companion of room6 and G-MODE's newly released fantasy adventure, OU.

The story is set in U-chronia, about which little is known except that it's a "dream-like world that recalls hazy memories of the distant past." The titular protagonist is a young boy who "wakes up in a dried-up riverbed without any memories of his own." Fortunately he soon meets and befriends Zarry, an "opossum with a flaming tail," who joins OU's quest and "guides him on a journey to find out his story." Along the way he'll meet many other unusual characters, whether friend or foe, human or animal, including Gemini, who looks exactly like OU except for different-coloured clothing, a Weeping Woman named La Llorona, who "leads him to tragedy," and a creature known as the Saudage Specter, who "haunts the boy." Each plays an important part in altering OU's story and determining its final outcome.

Accompanied by "rustic guitars and folksy themes that evoke the nostalgia of simpler times," the side-scrolling OU is gorgeously hand-drawn in a style reminincent of children's book illustrations, though the environments here are presented in an unusually muted palette. The story "unfolds like an old picture book read before bedtime," and the gameplay appears to be fairly standard genre fare. Curiously, however, the developers tease that "just like a Michael Ende book, OU disguises itself as something else—an adventure game—to meet and interact with reality." Adding to the intrigue, the game is also intended to be "a challenge to games as a whole."

What does all that mean? You'll have to play the game to find out, which you can do right away as OU is now available on Steam for Windows PC, along with the Nintendo eShop for Switch.

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