Tag Archives: weird

Kururin Squash!, GameCube

I only discovered this marvellous game recently, on the back of posting screenshots of its predecessor on here. But I’m extremely glad I did, because Kururin Squash! is a fantastic update of the same game mechanics that made Kuru Kuru Kururin so compelling to play: guiding a spinning stick around a series of mad, twisting mazes.

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Kuru Kuru Kururin, Game Boy Advance

Kuru Kuru Kururin is a weirdly-named but wonderful (and original) Game Boy Advance game, developed by Eighting and first published by Nintendo in 2001.

The idea is that you have to control a spinning stick, and take it around a series of increasingly twisting and torturous courses, without touching the sides, or hitting other hazards. And do it against a time limit. It’s one of those games with a simple premise, but offers quite a tough and interesting challenge.

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Gyron, ZX Spectrum

Gyron was developed by released by Firebird Software in 1985 and was something of a bolt out of the blue at the time. Nothing quite like it had been seen before.

You play as a Hedroid and roam a wireframe 3D maze, avoiding towers and spheres, while searching for the exit goal. In other words: you’re just trying not to get squished on your way out…

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Pastfinder, Commodore 64

David Lubar‘s relatively obscure 1984 classic, Pastfinder, is a weird vertically-scrolling shooter in which you control a spider-like craft that can crawl, shoot and jump, and you must explore a radioactive landscape picking up artefacts from a mysterious planet.

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Intensity, Commodore 64

Intensity was Andrew Braybrook‘s final Commodore 64 game (before moving on to 16-bit machines), and it’s a pretty good rescue the colonists type game, where you control a skimmer that has to contend with all manner of obstacles, all of which either want to kill you, or eat the colonists you’re trying to rescue.

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Gribbly’s Day Out, Commodore 64

Andrew Braybrook’s 1985 cult hit Gribbley’s Day Out is a strange kind of platform game in which you control a bouncing (and floating) head-on-a-foot, called Gribbly Grobbly.

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