Mad Peas' UNIA

The crazy game people at Mad Pea have struck again. Their latest, UNIA, is now open. Several people, including Inara Pey and Ziki Questi, have already blogged about it. There’s a web site devoted to the game, including a “Prologue” and a good description of how the game works.

The game description begins:

What an amazing day! It was a trip you had been dreading, but your friend's wedding turned out to be a memorable one. You're driving home, tired, but smiling and laughing to yourself, replaying the favorite moments of the event in your mind. Your head in the clouds, you don't notice right away the subtle shaking of the car. Suddenly, the shaking turns into violent bucks, smoke curls out from under the hood, and the whole heap starts to lurch out of control. 

Snapping out of your reverie, you grab the steering wheel with both hands and white-knuckle it, wrestling the bucking, heaving car to the side of the road, where it crashes to a stop. 

Coughing, you stumble out of the mess and look around. 

"Where am I?" 

You hadn't really paid much attention to the road signs, but you spot a run-down building with the town's name painted over its doorway: "Molimo." 

The dusty town is strangely quiet. With no other choice at hand, you wander around, hoping to find help. What you find instead is entirely unexpected ....

An intriguing beginning!

The game requires a HUD, available for purchase in three different levels: Bronze (L$400), Silver (L$750), and Gold (L$1000); the different levels provide increasing amounts of equipment to start. Game play involves looking at objects, collecting certain objects, and solving the central mystery of what’s going on, all the while trying to avoid getting killed by lurking monsters.

I’m not a big fan of first-person shooter games, and this aspect of UNIA doesn’t particularly appeal to me, but I can help but feel I’ll give the game a try at some point.