A Story About My Uncle

A Story About My Uncle is an adventure game.[1] Played from a first-person perspective, uses platform game elements set in a world of drifting rocks.[1] The player is searching for Uncle Fred.[2]

The game focuses on the narrator's uncle Fred, as the narrator tells a bedtime story to a small child.[1] The uncle Fred is described as "a brilliant scientist – a whimsical and even-tempered version of Uncle Quentin from the Famous Five books".[1] A board in the narrator's abandoned house tells the player that Fred built a waste disposal system, conceivably controlled by starlight. After this backstory, the game begins with the narrator as a child entering the "waste disposal dimension" to search for his uncle.[1] The player follows the uncle character through the game environment, with the player character having a suit that is equipped with a "magical grappling hook and shock absorbers" that stop the player character from taking damage when landing.[1] Later on in the game, the player will find and be able to use jet-propelling boots, which enable them to travel farther in one jump.[1]

The initial ideas for developing the game were "basically playing with gravity in the world – you would turn it upside down" according to Sebastian Eriksson, co-founder of Gone North Games and one of the company's programmers.[3] Eriksson "had been playing around with a mechanic to propel yourself within this gravity-bending game"; this ended up being the main game mechanic, and the game was built around it.[3] The students who developed A Story About My Uncle had "to teach themselves how to use game development software" Unreal Engine because they did not have much experience in the video game field.[3]

The game was developed over three months in 2012, in the Unreal Engine Unreal Development Kit, by a small group of students at Södertörn University.[3][4][5] Being developed for a competition, university students were tasked to build a "non-violent first-person game in the Unreal Engine".[3] The Södertörn students went on to form their own video game studio called Gone North Games.[3] According to Sebastian Zethraeus, they learned how to use the engine in ten weeks and built a prototype in that time; he said that they "were proud of it at the time, but our eyes bleed now when we look at it".[3]

A Story About My Uncle was first released on 30 July 2012 as a free demo;[3][6] the demo was nominated for Game of the Year at Swedish Game Awards.[7] Developers Gone North Games then partnered with Coffee Stain Studios to publish the game on 28 May 2014, on Steam,[8][9] professionally redeveloping it in collaboration with Coffee Stain Studios.[10] The game was released on 28 May 2014 for Microsoft Windows,[11] and on 12 May 2017 for macOS and Linux.[12]

Gone North Games' student developers, together with Coffee Stain Studios, polished the game by "remaking everything from the meshes to the voice acting to the code itself".[3][10] Sebastian Eriksson said that being nominated for Game of the Year, and getting feedback from early players, led the group to finish the game.[3]

A Story About My Uncle received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[8] As of December 2019 the game scored a "Very Positive" review by over 10,150 reviews on Steam.[17]

Stephen Dunne of GodisaGeek wrote that "Some [players] may find A Story About My Uncle too easy, some people may find it infuriating", but that "most, however, will be engrossed in its ever-glowing and charismatic fantasy world".[18] Ben Griffin of PC Gamer wrote that the game "is fast, fluid and fun".[19] Cassidee Moser of CGMagazine praised the game for being "well-crafted and paced", adding that the "environments are varied and beautifully done" and the "story itself is a light-hearted, innocent magical romp".[20]

Kyle Hilliard of Game Informer also found the game to be light-hearted, but did suggest that this is "at odds with the difficulty late in-game", and so confusing who the game is aimed at.[21]

In 2012, A Story About My Uncle received a nomination for Game of the Year at the Swedish Game Awards.[7]

• Official website