Independent Gaming: The Underside

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

The Underside is an exploration based action platformer in the vein of games like Castlevania, Metroid, and Cave Story. However, unlike most other games in this genre, the gameplay is driven more by plot than by free-roaming exploration.

Graphics and engine are completely original. The plot revolves around a character named 'Ip' who must escape from the underside, and maybe prevent the world from being destroyed while he's at it. Characters, plot strands, and dialogue are heavily inspired by Earthbound, and are quirky, whimsical, and sometimes a little strange.

The gameplay is very fast based, a lot more akin to games like Mega Man or Metal Slug rather than Metroid or Cave Story in terms of pacing.

Name: The Underside
Developer: The Podunkian
Category: Platform
Type: Freeware
Size: 20MB

Labels: underside

Posted at 8:18 AM by Tim

Post a Comment

Unknown said at 3/08/2007 02:35:00 PM:

Full screen mode gimme a 640x480 screen with a big white border and the game inside.
How can I fix that?
Could I play in a 320x240 mode?

Josh Buczynski said at 3/08/2007 03:12:00 PM:

Press Alt-Enter to go into full screen display.

This game is pretty mean with the jumps, mostly due to the speed of the character's falling.

I'd like a save point right when Route 66 starts.

Unknown said at 3/08/2007 03:22:00 PM:

Full screen mode doesn't give me a 320x240 resolution, but a bigger one with a little screen with the game at the center and a large white border. :/
Did you experience the same problem, josh?

Josh Buczynski said at 3/08/2007 08:15:00 PM:

Yeah, when I hit the "Maximize Window" button, it makes the window increase in size, but the actual game screen is still just a little 320x240 rectangle with a big, white background.

Try holding Alt and tapping Enter. For me, it changes the screen resolution to 320x240. When I press Alt-Tab to switch between applications, Windows is still in that resolution.

Unknown said at 3/09/2007 02:23:00 AM:

in full screen mode i get black (and not white :)) border. also game screen is scaled horizontally but not vertically. otherwise the game is rather fun.

Anonymous said at 3/09/2007 04:24:00 AM:

is this the finished game. i heard something of a preview just last week.

Jcsworld said at 3/09/2007 04:40:00 AM:

It's a preview, it ends a bit past the first boss.

I enjoyed it. The first boss was a bit tough for me, maybe I'm just getting old and slow.

Anonymous said at 3/09/2007 05:43:00 AM:

Naw, probably not old and slow - just outta practice. The boss was really hard at first but then you get the pattern down just like a Megaman boss. The game looks like it'll shape up to be very fun and challenging. It really plays like Metroid+Megaman with Cave Story quirks.

Hint: Don't let the boss throw you up in the air.

Adam said at 3/09/2007 03:56:00 PM:

too tough.
Cave Story was tough but it lured me into it with easy and simple gameplay at the beginning.
But this one just BAM!! you are dead.Sorry. Had potential. Only for those who dont have a life.

Anonymous said at 3/09/2007 08:53:00 PM:

I don't think it was too though, yet my computer couldn't run it smoothly, so maybe that helped.

I also got the 640x480 res. With that white border in full screen mode.

I wish there were less signs. Too much of them, and too much dialogs too.

Not bad, but not nearly as good as Cave Story.

Also, it's dumb to use ogg for chip music, make some .mod's or .it's!

Anonymous said at 3/10/2007 06:08:00 AM:

I agree with Adam. I didn't like the tutorial style introduction, Cave Story didn't need it, why would this? But then it throws you right into the deep end. The corridor scenes just bored me, with no levelling up to do it makes encounters that less interesting.
The soundtrack was very mixed. Some nice tracks mixed with a horrendous title song. I fell over and lost my jumping shoes? Bad mechanic right there.
Some graphics look off too. Namely the outside backdrops and sprites. Like they tried to copy A Game With a Kitty too, but failed with the ugly colours.

A nice attempt but overall just not as good as Pixels masterpiece.

Anonymous said at 3/10/2007 07:02:00 AM:

I didn't think it was that bad or too tough. The tutorial area wasn't too intrusive, you aren't forced to stop and read the signs. Some games require you to follow a painfully slow extensive tutorial of obvious controls (eg. "room 1: walk left or right, room 2: jump and push direction keys to move while jumping", etc). The monsters were easy to kill or avoid, you only die instantly on the spikes, if I remember correctly that also happens in Cave Story.

The way you lose your hi-jump shoes is a bit cheap though. I liked playing it and am looking forward to the full release.

Anonymous said at 5/18/2007 01:56:00 PM:

Boy, I sure do love blatant Cave Story ripoffs.
Actually I'm quite serious, you don't imagine how much I ached for more after I finished it.

Anonymous said at 8/16/2007 06:22:00 AM:

Don't listen to these hater, I ****ing loved it. It's like Earthbound and Cave Story got together and had a child, please don't give ever give up on this...I want more!

Anonymous said at 8/16/2007 06:24:00 AM:

Also, those of you saying the way you lose the jump shoes was cheap, you obviously don't understand the game's humor...