So many games... (Thoughts on UFO 50)

     Hey friends, we got a Indie World Showcase last week and with it came two announcements that I've been looking forward to for a long time. The first one was an announcement for the release date of Mina the Hollower, the new game from Yacht Club Games, which is coming out on Halloween, They also put out a demo for the game which was really good, and makes me excited for it all over again. The other announcement that I've really wanted for a while was the announcement and shadowdrop of UFO 50, a game that took the internet by storm when it came out last Fall. I've only been playing it for a few days, and honestly I don't have any deep thoughts yet, because I haven't even played all 50 of the games yet, but I thought I should get some early thoughts out while I'm still going through and playing them all. I hope you're excited for some 8 and 16-bit era fun, because that's what I'll be talking about today.

What's In A Game?

    The first thing that I have to say about this game is just how impressive it is to have 50 completely different games, spanning different genres, styles, and lengths. Of course, some games are longer than others, with some just being short, arcade-style challenge games, such as "The Big Bell Race," but in this package, the variety is all over the place. To put it in NES terms, it's like if they packaged Clu-Clu Land with Metroid, Fire Emblem, Ice Climber, River City Ransom and quite a few other games. It would actually be a disservice to compare the games in this collection directly with those classic NES titles, because they're clearly modern takes on these old formulas, and I have to say that they've been knocked out of the park here. While some of these are certainly takes on old genres, or old tropes that you could see back in the 80's, there are so many cool and creatively original games in this collection. I can say that with confidence, even as someone who hasn't tried all of the games quite yet, there are a few that has continued to make me gravitate to them. 

    Since obviously, there are 50 games here, I'm not going to waste all of your time and talk about all 50 of them anyways, so I'll just talk about a few that stuck out to me. While I'm not great at Tactical RPGs, I played a good bit of "Avianos," a game that reminded me a bit of the Civilization series, and had a good time. Each turn, you choose a dinosaur "god" that dictates the actions that you can take in any turn. Do you go full on with the military force and choose a dinosaur that recruits as many units as you can, or do you build something or harvest resources? There's a lot to think about with each turn. "Ninpek" is a classic arcade Contra style run and gun type game, though with an obvious Ninja feel to it. It's very fun to play, even though I'm not very good. "Golfaria" is a golfing roguelike, where you have a certain number of strokes and hope to pick up more and more powerups to raise your stroke count high enough to explore more and more of the caves on the map. I'm not very far in it, but it is really cool so far and I like the idea a lot. "Warptank" is exactly what it says that it is, you play as a tank that warps from surface to surface, in a manner close to ZZZZZZ (that's the name of a game, I didn't just fall asleep on one key). There are a lot of levels and an overall hub world to transport you through all of them. The more you go through, the more areas open up in this facility and you get a bit closer to figuring out where you're going. "Velgress" reminded me of a backwards version of Downwell where you're always going up instead of down, and there's definitely something addicting about it, with the shops coming up every 30 floors to make your character stronger giving it a bit of a roguelike feel.

    I could talk about a lot more of the games in this collection, but really I think it's better if you experience them for yourself. The narrative of this game is really interesting, because there really isn't much of one, but this is essentially a history of a fake game publisher, UFO Soft, and apparently they were very busy during the 80's. It's kind of fun to pay attention to the stories of which developers worked on which games, which were kind of weird and experimental projects that later led to a very different game or a sequel to an earlier game in the timeline. For example, we have three numbered "Campanella" games and a spin-off after their first one was the first really big success that the company had, which was the reason that they changed their name to UFO Soft in the first place. It's just a really interesting little detail that didn't need to be added since all of the games are fun enough to not have to put in the extra effort, but it is definitely appreciated. Speaking of extra details, there's a side game to all of these others, where if you fulfill special conditions in each game, they'll give you an item for this pig's house, which you can find in the menu. Some of the items seem better than others, for instance, I got possums from one of the games, but then in another game I got a couch. Very weird, but it's just another little fun side thing that they stuck into this already very generous package.

    I know this is a bit of a short post, but UFO 50 is a game that thrives on diving in for a little while and playing a really fun game that you like, some of which will rival some of your favorite experiences on classic consoles. It's a weird game, but one that I'm looking forward to playing a lot more of in the days ahead, and hopefully I'll find more and more of the games that appeal to me as I go.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! I would love to hear what you think about this game if you pick it up or if you've played it a lot already. I may start slowing down and not posting quite as often in the days ahead since I'm getting ready to start some courses at Seminary next week, but I hope you'll still look forward to my thoughts whenever I put them out. Thank you so much for all of your support over the years, and I look forward to continuing this effort of mine to throw my hat in with the "Fools Who Dream." I hope you're all doing well! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed retro games enthusiast, and I'll talk to you again soon.