gAmeDHD

Tikwid

Nubby’s Number Factory was made by a person who was born in around 2003 or 2004. This a fact that needs to be stated for anything further here to have any weight. The game itself has me hooked. I can’t stop. I’ve been in the middle of playing 4 different massive JRPGs (as I always am), which I find endlessly fascinating and engaging. But I find myself breaking from those epic sagas incredibly often to perch myself on the nostalgic haze that is Nubby’s Number Factory.

NNF looks like the bastard child of a poly relationship between the $.25 gochapon machines in the front of your childhood grocery store, Peggle, and Snood. It’s a simple premise: drop a ball, all Peggle-like down a board of numbered pegs, reducing them as you bounce, and collecting money and points as you go. You have a certain number of lives to clear a point minimum, and every handful of rounds you’re brought to a store. The roguelike store is the only thing that gives away the fact this game came out in 2025. And it’s what gives the game its hook. However, NNF could’ve – for all intents and purposes – come out in 2002 without the roguelike shop mechanics, and would’ve been a smash hit a-la the games I have already mentioned.

What really hooks me with this game, though, is the early aughts cyber grunge aesthetic. It reminds me of a simpler time. When I was in middle school and flirting with girls – and boys whether they knew it or not – being angry at my parents, and dealing with undiagnosed everything-I-have-since-been-diagnosed-with. But those times were nice, and kind, and peaceful. Maybe I’d come home and grind out some levels in Kingdom Hearts, maybe I’d pretend to do homework in the computer room while secretly spending time playing snood or Elasto Mania instead. There were other classics like Icy Tower or the still infamous Neopets. I refuse to link that website. You know what it is. You probably know how problematic it has become and maybe always was. That’s beside the point.

The internet in the early to mid 2000s was a mystical wonderland of the wild west. Cyber Grunge wasn’t a thing yet, because that’s just what the internet looked like. World of Warcraft was a figment in Blizzard developers wildest dreams. The internet just was that way. For an example see Mog Dog (the creator of Nubby’s Number Factory)’s website here. It’s astounding that this is the best example I can come up with on the fly without having to link something through the WayBackMachine. This 21-year-old has somehow recaptured and recapitulated something they arguably weren’t even alive for. And Mog Dog is far from being the only one to do it right now.

UFO 50 has been neatly categorized as a throwback to the NES era. I think that’s wrong. While, yes, the games are made to encapsulate that 80s era, I think it’s more a throwback to the early cyber days of very early flash games via Newgrounds and Ebaums World (I went to Ebaums World as it stands today. It’s not the same, dude. It’s a bad place now.) An era of sketchy internet downloads, and an era of throwing back to the 80s is, what I think, UFO 50 is ultimately quoting. A nostalgic look at a time that was already quoting nostalgia. To put it plainly, UFO 50, is reminiscing about the 2000s which in turn were at the time reminiscing about the late 1980s. Trends run in cycles, is what I’m saying. That’s not exactly a ground-breaking sentiment, but I think it’s extremely important we remember and are aware of what our favorite developers are quoting.

This, in essence, is a plea from me to you to learn more about the history of your favorite past-time. I’m assuming since you’re here it’s gaming, but it could be anything. We don’t have the right to enjoy something without having at least some semblance of the knowledge of what came before. Sure, we can appreciate Skyrim for what it is, but it’s enjoyed to a much further extent when we keep in mind Daggerfall. Elden Ring becomes so much more meaningful if we have a working knowledge of King’s Field, and where FromSoft came from. What I mean to say, is the kids are alright. If this 21-year-old can successfully quote a time period in games they weren’t functioning being during, then you owe it to them, and to yourself, to be able to understand those quotes.

A huge swath of us are are becoming further and further enraptured by nostalgia for this era. Millennials are nostalgic for this time the way Gen X was for the 80s and 90s, and boomers were for the civil war and segregation. The best part is there are folx who are remembering it in a way that gives us a chance to feel like we’re playing Snood again without actually having to play Snood again. So, if you’re over 30 (which my demographics are sketchy about at best) go play Nubby’s Number Factory. And say thanks to your local Zoomer for remembering our youth for us. They’ve still got the energy.