Eat your Ouka, kids.

December 16, 2011 12:24 PM

Flash Friday: Gamerswithjobs calls Nekogames' OUKA a "very minimalist experience, offering the simplest rules possible in a video game...(i)nstead of a long sentence or paragraph explaining things, or even a tutorial video, when you click the “Hint” button the game simply lays part of the level’s inner workings bare. It’s a testament to the simplicity of the game that this works so well." Just click the symbol, that's all.

I got through all the levels. The endgame screen told me I used six hints. The hint on level 5 didn't even help me until I played a later level and it got me thinking about what might work on that most accursed level.

posted by mreleganza (34 comments total)

No one was hiring when I got out of college. Can I still read this site?
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 12:29 PM on December 16, 2011

Neat!
posted by blahblahblah at 12:32 PM on December 16, 2011

This is pretty cool.
posted by roll truck roll at 12:35 PM on December 16, 2011

Metafilter: Congratulations. You clicked on the the symbol.
posted by Nelson at 12:35 PM on December 16, 2011

I finished this without understanding most of the mechanism. Does that make me a savant or just an idiot? Because I desperately need to believe that these games boost my intelligence somehow...

Pro tip: right-clicking displays the flash context menu, which freezes the game...
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:38 PM on December 16, 2011

HOLY FUCK I CAN'T GET PAST LEVEL 2. Am I an idiot?
posted by Think_Long at 12:49 PM on December 16, 2011

Does that make me a savant or just an idiot?

If you just beat every level using that right-click trick, I think the correct word is "spoilsport."
posted by roll truck roll at 1:00 PM on December 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

I clicked on the symbol.
posted by cell divide at 1:48 PM on December 16, 2011

Man, Level 15 is hard even with the hint on. Most of these were fairly intuitive for me, and a lot of fun. Love the simplicity of this game, and that there are loads others on the main site. Thanks for the bookmark!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:03 PM on December 16, 2011

Think_Long: "HOLY FUCK I CAN'T GET PAST LEVEL 2. Am I an idiot?"

You don't have to see it to click it.
posted by Hargrimm at 2:05 PM on December 16, 2011

That was a surprising amount of fun. 4 hints and I felt a little silly for all but one of them. Trying to infer what the next level was going to do based on previous levels helped but then a new mechanism would be introduced and I'd drag myself to the hint button after awhile.
posted by Kip at 2:16 PM on December 16, 2011

I had to go to System Preferences and change my mouse speed to the lowest possible setting to solve one level. This is not the "simplest rules possible," in fact, I don't know if it even qualifies as a game, if you can't solve it without external intervention.
posted by charlie don't surf at 2:31 PM on December 16, 2011

This is not the "simplest rules possible," in fact, I don't know if it even qualifies as a game, if you can't solve it without external intervention.

I solved it without external intervention.
posted by kenko at 2:36 PM on December 16, 2011

Yeah. That's a clever approach, charlie don't surf, but definitely not the only way to solve it.

I don't know if it even qualifies as a game, if you can't solve it without external intervention.

This got me thinking about games where you have to go "outside the game" to solve. I remember reading about a console game where at one point, you have to unplug your controller and plug it into a different port.
posted by roll truck roll at 3:00 PM on December 16, 2011

@roll truck roll

metal gear solid

HIDEO

posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 3:07 PM on December 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yup, I couldn't remember the title. I've never played any of the Metal Gear games, but that piqued my interest.
posted by roll truck roll at 3:36 PM on December 16, 2011

3 hints, no external. nice.
posted by progosk at 4:03 PM on December 16, 2011

Beat it with 3 hints and no cheating. Pretty neat, and good thoughtfood for tonight's Ludum Dare brainstorming.
posted by NMcCoy at 4:19 PM on December 16, 2011

For those of you bragging about how few hints you needed, you should really go back and look at the hints. They're part of the charm.
posted by roll truck roll at 4:36 PM on December 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't think I actually truly solved level 15. It turns out that if you leave your tab (in order to go over to Metafilter and look for a solution, for example) and then return, the game window doesn't realise you are back until you click. So you can bring the cursor over the star and then click and solve it. But I didn't realise that was what had happened until after I was doing level 16 and started thinking back to the previous one.

So did I cheat? Was it a bug? Or was that what you were meant to do?
posted by lollusc at 6:03 PM on December 16, 2011

Needed hints for #10 (had the right principle, but didn't take it to extremes) and #15 (noticed something odd, but didn't figure it out). Neat, thanks.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 6:32 PM on December 16, 2011

Yeah. That's a clever approach, charlie don't surf, but definitely not the only way to solve it.

I keep my mouse set to fairly fast speed (I have a 30 inch screen so I need fast mousing) and I could not move the mouse slow enough. This is just due to a poor assumption by the programmer.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:23 PM on December 16, 2011

Holy shit... Level 3 is the plot to my comic Zany Guy! (well, not totally, but kinda sorta!)
posted by symbioid at 9:14 PM on December 16, 2011

How in the world is Level 15 solved?
posted by davidjmcgee at 11:00 PM on December 16, 2011

With some difficulty, it turns out.
posted by davidjmcgee at 11:08 PM on December 16, 2011

I love these. I got stuck on a couple of levels because I didn't even think about clicking and holding, so I ended up clicking the last hint (I think). It still told me I'd done it using zero for some reason though.

There's a series of games with a similar premise but which are less minimalist called Hoshi Saga — "The game is to discover a star covered in a stage"

Hoshi Saga 1
Hoshi Saga 2
Hoshi Saga 3
posted by lucidium at 5:57 AM on December 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I had to go to System Preferences and change my mouse speed to the lowest possible setting to solve one level.

There's another way....while moving your mouse as slowly as possible, try saying aloud (with urgency) "Easy....EASY...EASY!!!!" like your trying to detonate a bomb in a movie.
posted by mreleganza at 7:09 AM on December 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Having a 30" screen doesn't create a need for faster mouse speed. If I replaced my screen with a screen that's 100 miles diagonal, and kept my mouse speed the same. It would take the same amount of time to traverse the length of the screen. You don't have to speed it up because the mouse is going farther. The resolution is going to be the factor. I' sure your resolution matches alot of ours.
posted by BurnChao at 8:05 AM on December 17, 2011

Finished. Zero hints, zero exploits, I was stuck once, so I went to make some coffee and the flower crept all the way to the border and stopped there. Gotcha!
But I solved level 11 (where the flower moves and is visibe only when you click) by clicking madly.
posted by hat_eater at 8:47 AM on December 17, 2011

Two hints, hooray!
posted by griphus at 9:06 AM on December 17, 2011

So did I cheat? Was it a bug? Or was that what you were meant to do?

Think of it as Metafilter's Gift.
posted by ersatz at 10:45 AM on December 17, 2011

Having a 30" screen doesn't create a need for faster mouse speed.

You haven't thought this through. If you had a 100 mile diagonal screen, and kept the mouse speed the same as your 1024x680 laptop, you'd need at least 50 square miles of desktop to move your mouse.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:43 PM on December 17, 2011

charlie don't surf, mouse movement is relative to the resolution, not the physical size of your monitor.
posted by lucidium at 6:46 PM on December 17, 2011

Finished with one hint on Level 11, but I didn't actually understand it until my second time through (when I looked at all the hints) and just clicked furiously in order to see the little blinky flower. A fun and elegant game, just challenging enough to be interesting without being maddeningly frustrating.
posted by skoosh at 7:11 PM on December 17, 2011