You just know that Tamiku’s developer Josyan has a crate of NES and Commodore 64 games tucked under his CRT. Tamiku doesn’t just look like a game from that era: it’s got to be a lost NES cartridge that’s only just been restored.
Tamiku hop, skips and jumps onto Xbox One, Switch and PlayStation 4 today.
Tamiku cosies up to some absolute classics. There’s a lot of Bubble Bobble here in the Panic Mode, single screen platforming, and even the font used for the scores. I’m getting some Ice Climber vibes, and – it seems from the trailer – that there are some natty little Balloon Fight bits too. That might not mean much to those with fewer wrinkles, so apologies!
The game itself is from Ratalaika Games, the most prolific of all publishers, and casts you as an alien who was sent to earth to…pop balloons. It’s not exactly James Cameron, but we’ll take it. Each level requires you to clear it of balloons, which is customarily more difficult than it sounds, as there are enemies (we’re protective of our balloons as a planet) and a time limit.
There are 16 levels on offer across 8 worlds, which sounds a little ominously low for a single-screen platformer, even a budget one, but we’ll save the assumptions for our review, which is due soon.
Play Tamiku on Xbox One now for £4.99, and the same price on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. Launch is in Europe, America and Japan.
Game Description:
You are an alien from a distant galaxy who is totally obsessed with blow up balloons. Having popped every last balloon on your home planet, now you must venture to other worlds in search of more balloons to pop. Inspired by classic arcade games, Tamiku is an arcade game in which you have to burst all the balloons of a level without being killed. To do this you will face different dangers, jump, run and quickly inflate the red balloons!
