UFO 50 Retrospective Part 26 - Hot Foot

Hot Foot is one of the most important games in the entire UFO Soft canon, which is very funny, cause when I first played it, I got none of that, and it felt like the most nothing game I’d ever played. Let’s start with what the game is, then I’ll go into the very deep lore around its creation, its existence, and Gerry Smolski.

Hot Foot is another sports game, which I’ve already said isn’t really my thing. It’s based on a game Smolski and Chun played in their school as kids, and it’s a kind of variant of dodge ball. You have hacky sacks, which you are trying to skid across the ground to hit the opponent. You can charge your throw, which can leave you open to be hit. You need to jump over the enemy’s sacks as they throw them at you. Each jump will charge up your star meter, which can be used for two Super Moves. Either double tap jump fior one, or charge the strongest throw for the other. These moves should NOT be ignored, they are very strong. Hot Foot is all about paying attention to your opponent’s moves, and trying to react to them, hitting them when you’re charging, or grabbing a hacky sack, or grabbing a drink, which gives you star points.

It’s a lot to pay attention to, especially since you’re controlling two people at once! This IS doubles. You both jump at the same time, though you need to press the swap button to move the other player around. You can also hold the button to pass hacky sacks. This is a very complex double button game, and it’s kind of a lot to learn, which is a bit of its learning curve. Once you get past that point, it’s actually kinda fun? This game ended up growing on me, and even though the cherry requirement is hard, I ended up liking it quite a bit by the end. It’s nothing SPECTACULAR or AMAZING, but y’know, it’s an alright sports game. It’s got charm. You’ve also got cute things all the characters can say to each other too, like uh, this one guy telling a one eyed kid named Jerry that he’ll take his other eye too…. huh.

…Jerry, that name sounds familiar.

That concludes the review portion of the review. Now let’s talk about meta story.

Hotfoot is made by Gerry Smolski, and is the final game that he made with UFO Soft. after this game, Gerry Smolski, remember, one of the two founders alongside Benedikt Chun, would leave the company, in a move that is sliiiightly fishy, as the company came under new management. This was his final game, a kind of send off, and a look into both Gerry Smolski as a person, and his childhood, because this game is EXPLICITELY about Smolski and Chun’s childhood, the history says that directly. This is their school as kids, that’s their coach, these are their classmates. Jerry is Gerry Smolski, and Benji is Benedikt Chun.

Quick side tangent, but this game ALSO takes place in the Partyverse, introduced in the previous game. The Monkey from that game appears here, and Amy, one of the playable characters, is the party thrower from Party House, as shown later down the road. She’s implied to be based on an IRL person from Chun and Smolski’s childhood, which is interesting. But that’s not what’s important here.

It’s 1986, and for the past year, something has been brewing in LX Systems. Or, as it’s called now, UFO Soft. They had been having financial problems for quite a while, with no big hits and not a large user base, but in 1985, they had their big breakaway hit! Campanella was a massive success, and with it, they got… attention. Introducing Tao Nemuru.

Tao Nemuru is the antagonist of our story. If you just look at the credits without piecing together who enters and leaves and what times, and how they work, he might almost seem like a protagonist. And HE certainly views himself that way. And in 1986, a lot of people in the company probably view him that way, too. Tao Nemuru is a rich man, and he’s entering into the company, offering to buy it and support the company with his money. He wants to be their CEO and producer, so they can keep creating the games that they love making. Sounds like a great idea, right? Benedikt Chun seems to think so. He’s on board with it, and is working directly with Nemuru, in an attempt to keep the company afloat. After all, without him, they’ll jsut shut down.

But Gerry Smolski seems to think otherwise… If you bring big money into the equation, if you have someone holding that kind of power and influence over you, it’ll influence the art. It’ll break what made us swap to games in the first place. The love of the game. So for the past year, there’s been conflicting power struggles in the company, but following Hot Foot, Gerry Smolski will leave the company, and Tao Nemuru will officially become the lead producer of every game after that point, and known as “the boss” around the office. Whether this will be a good thing or a bad thing in the end, only time will show.

Wanna know how I know all this? Gerry says it himself to Chun, and in Party House, his previous game he worked on.

It’s a classic case of developers hiding their feelings about company bullshit in their games. And it’s also it’s a rather classic struggle in the industry. The struggle of money, and of letting money control us. But the story motivations of Tao Nemuru are actually far, FAR more complex and interesting than they first appear, and while we won’t really see them reflect on the company JUST yet, rest assured that I will get to them, eventually. Stay tuned.

Oh, yeah, Hot foot. It’s alright.

Bye, G.S.

6/10