Indie Dev Moment: Pandaland
I’ve spent the better part of the past ten years denying it, but the inescapable truth about my life is that I am a hipster. There’s no sense in apologizing, it’s just the way society made me. So when I heard last week about the release of Pandaland, an indie freeware retro platformer all about hipsters in Sweden, well, clearly I knew this was a game I needed to play.*
Yes, in Pandaland you play as an adorable 8-bit girl in a checkered miniskirt and fat white headband named Amanda Panda (how flippin’ indie is that?) who must battle the orange-tanned, bleached-blonde, waxed-and-botoxed brats from Östermalm (and their oh-so-annoying poodles) who have taken over your town of Söder and taken away your friends, who fit comfortably in that range from mod to emo. It’s sort of the way I always felt about kids from Suffolk county. Instead of health, Amanda has Pepp, which is replenished by picking up cheap beer, cigarettes, cassette tapes, iPods, and coffee. You are granted invincibility when you find a new pair of shiny shoes. I’m not even kidding about any of that. It’s kind of amazing.
The game is short, only four levels including one boss fight that should last a grand total of maybe ten minutes, but they are ten joyous minutes of stylish retro gaming goodness, and there’s a harder challenge mode for replay value. 
In fact, my only qualm with Pandaland is that it’s Windows-only right now. Seriously, an indie game about hipsters that doesn’t play on Macs? Let’s all just pretend Svante Danielsson did that ironically. I actually installed Windows XP on my iMac just so I could play Pandaland, and yeah, it was worth it. I compromised my values to play a computer game, so maybe I’m not such a hipster after all. Then again, maybe I just did that ironically as well.
Download Pandaland for free right here (click the word “här”), along with its sweet, sweet chiptune soundtrack right here.
* Upon learning of Pandaland, 61FPS mastermind John Constantine declared that I had clearly made the game myself and posted the site in Swedish to throw him off the track. I maintain that this is not true.
Previously on Indie Dev Moment:
The Manipulator
Effing Hail
Judith
Scarygirl
Tags: derrick sanskrit, freeware, hipsters, indie dev moment, pandaland, retro, sweden, windows
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines.
Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.
Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
RT @GPHemsley @ducktastic That looks a lot like a cross between SMB2 and SMB3….
http://twitter.com/GPHemsley/status/1684945592
Wonderful review! Made us smile!