[A-Z Games] U: Um Jammer Lammy

"Simon says everybody lay down on the floor, right away, right away..."

"Simon Says" is a child's playground game where the leader, Simon, gives orders and everyone else does those actions unquestioningly. It sounds pretty authoritarian and was invented by the National Socialist Party in Germany for the training of concentration camp officers and car park attendants^[1] and was eventually monetised with the invention of "Simon", an electronic game popular in the 1980s (you can play a version here). With a very simple memorise and repeat mechanic, it was ideal for those that had short attention spans.

In many ways, the music genre within videogames is pretty similar as you theoretically do not need to memorise very far down the line.

My first sighting of the lesser spotted Parappa was on a magazine cover mount demo disc. It was one of about 10 demos or whatever, and was not something that really caught my eye but I eventually gave it a go. I had never played anything like it and it barely felt fleshed out enough to even be a game. Pressing buttons in time to on-screen prompts? This is effectively the building block of all action games but so deconstructed, it felt like a joke. A pretty fun joke, but a joke nonetheless. And a joke that I kept playing too, which made little sense as it was just one level, one song but fun enough to keep playing and replaying. Before long, I realised that I had played it through more times than was normal.

“kick, punch, its all in the mind”

I remember showing it (you can check out some video here) to a few people at the time, in the days when PlayStations easily went into bags, and everyone enjoying it but saying that they thought it was a waste. But then enjoying it again. In hindsight, it is clearly a compelling game but at the time, it was a curio more than anything else. It was way too simple..... but very replayable. I think I rented it from a shop and played through Parappa with some friends.

And with that, was born a new gaming genre. Has there been one since?

Soon, Konami made the earth shattering Beatmania (and this would later become "BeMani" as a stable of games) which, along with its sister games, seemed to keep the arcade scene afloat in Japan for years with the many variations of music game possible. Beatmania, Guitar Freaks, Drummania, Dance Dance Revolution and the frankly insane Pop 'n Music all come from this same stable^[2]. 

Um Jammer Lammy was the sequel, of sorts, to Parappa The Rapper and changed it up by putting you in control of a guitarist rather than a rapper. Lammy used her guitar skills to get her out of a few scrapes, such as helping put out a fire and helping a mother give birth, through the story of trying to make it to a gig. Um Jammer Lammy retained the joyous musical style of Parappa the Rapper and gave it a bit of a rock twist. The way the game was represented as a set of paper cut outs (also seen in the style of Paper Mario) was also retained with all characters showing no depth at all. Visually at least.

Um Jammer Lammy added some freestyle elements and the analogue sticks could be used as effects pedals which gave you a little more leeway to bring your own sound in but it was still basically "Simon". Music games may have become more technical, more complicated and more musical, but I do not think they have ever been anywhere near as charming. Well, I have never been as charmed, anyway.

Jukebox version on YouTube.

3 other U titles that might be interesting: 
Unfinished Swan - A short, storybook world, and a striking game. 
Uncharted - Tomb Raider but with a man. Or just Indiana Jones. 
Under Defeat - Helicopters are not used in shooters enough, as this proves.

^{1. This is not true↩} .

^{2. I returned to the UK from a stint living in Japan from 2003 to 2006 to find a fundamental change in how music games were perceived by people. I was always terrible at music games, but it now seemed that everybody except me had plastic guitars for the now amazingly popular Guitar Hero. What the Western developers had managed to do was make the music within the games well known, now it was about playing along to famous tracks by Black Sabbath etc. Rock Band even had a Beatles version which was released to coincide with the remasters. things had changed....↩}