Up Up Ubie is a unique mobile game experience as quirky as its balloon-wielding main character. Up Up Ubie is a platforming, point and click style mobile game that is the brainchild of Andrew Augustin and his company Notion Games. Augustin created this entire project himself from the ground up. The game relishes in its simplicity. Easy to pick up controls, a fun and cartoon art style, and dope music keep this at the top of one’s on-the-go gaming experience.
Mobile games like Up Up Ubie have to strike that fine line between ease of use and progressive difficulty. Up Up Ubie finds this balanced sweet spot with having a smooth control scheme to battle increased numbers of enemies. Ubie moves by bouncing off of balloons that the user places by tapping the screen. Meanwhile, while Ubie is up in the air, the user taps or drags across the screen to destroy enemies. It is a simple rhythm of taps and drags, but in its simplicity lies its gameplay genius. The game never feels “too hard”. The player is only limited by their own tapping of their fingers and the progressive yearning to have a higher score keeps one coming back for more.
Artistically, the eye-popping art style that was used in this game is top-notch. The game is very cartoony with its bright color scheme and eye-popping character design. Ubie is very off to look at, but there is something cute about watching that green thing bounce and fail with their little red balloons. There is a natural beat that comes from the hands with a game like Up Up Ubie. Luckily, if the sound is on the player will hear a catchy soundtrack to go with the game. The main theme will get stuck inside your head if one is not too careful.
As with most free mobile games, microtransactions are a part of the experience. Up Up Ubie does indeed have this tool and has its function in a couple of different ways. There are coins that can be earned throughout the game that can be used to purchase power-ups. One can also use real money to purchase purple diamonds that allow the user to buy different skins for Ubie as well as additional levels. It appears that these cannot be earned by playing.
However, the game can be played without purchasing any of these, and Ubie looks the best in its natural green color. Up Up Ubie is not an in-depth, strategic game meant to take up hours of time. Up Up Ubie can be pulled out on the go for a quick game between meetings or it could be a chance to beat one’s score on a short ride on the bus to work. It is the perfect mobile gaming experience. It is simple, intuitive, quirky, and in the end, it is fun. Up Up Ubie is available for immediate download on all Android-based products.
Ryan Files is an avid comic book and video game consumer, reviewer, and critic hailing from the boondocks of Illinois. He has taken his ethnographic cultural studies background and applied it to his love of geekdom. He is a huge Star Wars nerd, Castlevania fanatic, and his power level is definitely over 9000. When he isn’t online writing about how he misses old school beat ’em ups like Final Fight, Streets of Rage, or TMNT IV Turtles in Time, he raises his 3 Dora Milaje warrior girls with the most awesome wife a blerd could ask for. You can reach the mumbly one @moblipeg on Twitter or email him at moblipeg@gmail.com.
