Out There Somewhere is a 2012 Puzzle Platformer for PC by MiniBoss studios, updated in 2014 for a Steam release. It presents the adventures of space fighter Yuri against the evil conqueror Grigori.
After a brief fight, the hero crash lands on a mysterious planet in which he must search for resources to fix his spaceship. Gameplay centers around a Teleport Gun that warps Yuri once its beams hit a surface, allowing him to interact with some mechanisms and reach otherwise inaccessible places.
Not to be confused with Out There, a much more somber space exploration game ported to Steam from the mobile devices.
Tropes featured out there somewhere:
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Grigori's attack in the beginning is a direct reference to Zero Wing, though the infamous line only appears as an Steam Achievement, complete with a cameo of CATS.
- Anti-Villain: ZUERA mode paints Grigori (now called "BOSS") as this. He's just trying to defend himself because Yuri is such a jerk.
- Book Ends: The game begins and ends with shmup gameplay.
- Boss Battle: Two against Grigori, one for each gameplay mode.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Red pillars of light cancel your beams. Blue pillars serve as walls. Green pillars turn your beams towards the ceiling.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Infinite lives, instant respawn and plenty of checkpoints.
- Denial of Diagonal Attack: The Teleport Gun is actually designed in-universe to only fire horizontally due to certain limitations of teleportation technology. This doesn't explain why it works fine when the beams are turned up by a green pillar, instead of spawning Yuri on his back.
- Guide Dang It!: By playing the game normally, you'd return to the first area and see the 11th Core in plain view, but become unable to collect it because the game forces itself into the final battle. The solution is to avoid checkpoints until you find the Gauss Gun, so then you can die, respawn at the first screen and break the wall blocking the item. This also allows you to collect the rapid fire powerup.
- Heart Container: Three to increase your health. Eleven to power up your ship.U FOUND A ~HEART~ NOW YOU CAN LOVE
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Yuri's unavoidable loss to Grigori at the beginning sets the stage for the Puzzle Platformer gameplay. You can get shot down as soon as the shmup level begins to get it over with.
- Infinity +1 Sword: The rapid fire upgrade for the Gauss Gun makes several screens a cakewalk, but it is tricky to find it. Collecting all 11 Cores and giving them to the Traitor doesn't really make much of a difference against the final boss than if you had collected 10.
- Missing Secret: There is a closed door atop a tower in the "Double Jump" screen. It doesn't seem to do anything.
- Named After Somebody Famous: The main character shares his name with Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.
- Sequence Breaking: The domain of the tree men can be skipped.
- Shout-Out: A few to Zero Wing.
- Steam achievements include "The truth is out there (somewhere)", "Beam me up, Scotty" and "Have a plan to kill everyone you meet".
- ZUERA mode is all about hashtags and typical social network banter, with direct nods to Instagram and Orkut.
- Silliness Switch: The PTBR "ZUERA" option changes all text in the game to brazilian nonsense and memes. Sadly, the game does not include a comedical script for the english and french languages.
- Take That!: ZUERA mode changes two lines in response to the common complaints about Brazilian games having outdated graphics and not bothering to include a Portuguese language option.I'LL ONLY OPEN BECAUSE THE GAME IS IN BRASILIAN AND I VALUE TEH NATION OK BUT THE GAME COULD BE 3D RUN IN PS4 WHILE ALL THE WORLD IS THERE HUH -_-
- Temporary Platform: One type crumbles too fast for you to jump after falling on it, but will not crumble if you merely walk over it. The second one breaks slowly as you step on it.
- Title Drop: The final line of the game. Grigori might have lost but he's still out there somewhere.U KIDDIN ME THE BOSS IS STILL OUT THERE SOMEWHERE! HAAAAAHHHH THE NAME OF THE GAME
- Teleport Gun: The core feature of the game. The bullets shot by the gun warp Yuri once they hit a wall or ceiling.
- Unexpected Shmup Level: The beginning of the game, if you only knew what the genre of the game is and didn't watch the trailers. If one happened to know literally nothing about the game when first starting it, then the Puzzle Platformer content is what comes off as unexpected.
