To create a great arcade game, you only need one idea. Lemme HUP !, by indie developer Ken Torii, borrows this idea from a minigame in Mario Party, taking a seed created by Nintendo and growing it into a glorious in-game flower.
The mini-game in question is Hot Rope Jump, which has seen players attempt to stay alive by jumping over a rope.
In the case of Lemme HUP !, the goal is to help an adorable, amorphous little animal called Gyubo jump over all kinds of objects as they fly back and forth across the screen.
If any of these objects brush against Gyubo in passing, you’re done. It’s for you back to the start of the scene. And avoiding them is harder than you might think, as they move at different speeds, in different directions, and without any particular pattern or pace. Plus, the game throws the weird visual trick in your way to trip you up.
In other words, you have to really focus if you want to keep little Gyubo in the points. It’s a tough challenge, but as you progress through the campaign, Gyubo will gradually acquire new skills to help him dodge the various flying objects.
This is handy because the challenge also increases, with new mechanics being introduced as you move from stage to stage.
The smart thing about Lemme HUP! It’s how he combines a super cute, pastel-hued marshmallow aesthetic with a stimulating game mechanic. Put simply, you really don’t want to let Gyubo down.
Lemme HUP! is available now on the Google play store and the App Store. It’s also free to download, so you should definitely check it out. Future updates will add unlockable costumes and skins as well, as well as level increases.