UFO 50, the faux-retro compilation from the creators of games like Spelunky, Air, Land & Sea and Downwell, is finally releasing after a long development process. Which, well, makes sense! There are 50 games in here, and it didn’t quite take them 50 times as long to make, so perhaps they can take that as a victory. And it seems like it was worth the extra effort, because it’s largely a delight to play.
UFO 50’s titles are, the developers insist, not minigames! And they’re right; this isn’t Mario Party. What they do offer, though, is a more concentrated experience than most games that would launch by themselves. The lengths vary, but if you like the process of learning a game more than what comes after, you’ll enjoy that in UFO 50 every few hours.
Since it was made by a collective of folks used to creating their own stuff, they can feel very different in aims. Having a primarily-analog designer, Jon Perry, on board means a lot more tactical play, which we do love around here. Downwell creator Ojiro Fumoto’s brief involvement with the release shows through in some super-quick action. These sorts of different minds add both to the variety of fun you’ll have and to the feeling that it’s a compilation of disparate releases from within an old game company.
It’s important to note that this isn’t a Retro Game Challenge sort of release. There are ideas that only work within the fictional retro context, for sure! But these are generally original game ideas, rather than straightforward ‘80s homages. They’re all built for a fictional retro computer, which in practice means they share a color palette and resolution and a two-button control scheme. We do like the simplicity! There are a few of these games that would have benefited from in-game start button functionality for a menu or a third face button to keep from overlapping controls, but they stuck to their guns on that point and it does mean that these games are as tight and streamlined as it feels they could manage.
An example on the more conventional end is Grimstone. It replicates the grind-heavy feel of NES-era RPGs, implementing a timing-based battle system but otherwise sticking with the restrictions and ideas of the era. As a standalone game, it would be frustrating and generally lacking, but here it serves as an important part of the game’s fictional fabric.
On the other end, you have games like disc-flicker Lords of Diskonia and deck-builder Party House, which clearly have their roots in the more modern analog game scene. But they handle them in a very video-game-like way. In Lords of Diskonia, for example, the opponent never misses. Bank shots? Wild combos? They can absolutely do it every time. The key is in exploiting the factors they don’t take into account as frequently, like ending their turn in fog or leaving themselves vulnerable after their moves. This is very different from playing a human (which you can still do here, by the way), who can absolutely consider all the factors but won’t necessarily keep 360-no-scoping you the whole time.
Many of the action games in the collection are what you’d call “Nintendo hard,” the punishing sort of difficulty that many games of the era had to extend play time through repetition with limited resources and storage space to make new worlds. Though we’re sure this will vary from person to person, we found the difficulty to vacillate somewhere between “totally doable” and “I might be able to beat this first level with enough practice, but that doesn’t sound like a fun time.”
In addition to “Nintendo hard,” there’s also sometimes “Spelunky hard,” not afraid to be punishing and wipe progress away in an instant. This makes sense given the dev team, of course! And myriad factors make this an okay approach. The shorter included games and the quantity, in case you just want to bounce around and find what you like without feeling too bad about what you don’t. A generation of players raised on Demon’s Souls-like games. It does mean that, well, we’re not beating some of these ourselves. But we’re sure others will.
True to its retro feel, UFO 50 is a game that could really benefit from something like an instruction manual. As it stands, it’s more like sifting through a collection of ROMs: you’ll get the button commands in the menu and a one-sentence descriptor, but a lot of context or explanation you’d get in the documentation ephemera of the past just isn’t here. We’re sure there will be a lot of resources for players very quickly after the game releases and fans create them! But they weren’t there for us in the pre-launch review period.
The selection of games feels primarily tuned for a great two-player experience, and it’s here that you’ll find some more easily explained games. Kick Club is Bubble Bobble with a ball-kicking attack. Bushido Ball is a samurai Windjammers. Fist Hell is River City Ransom with zombies.
Two of our favorites: Hyper Contender and Quibble Race. The first is a TowerFall-style quick battle game, with each character having a movement and attack function, but they can be very different. Is your attack a linear missile or a Castlevania-style axe throw? Do you have a jump, or do you reverse your gravity? The various matchups all play out in different ways.
On the complete opposite end of the action spectrum, Quibble Race is a hidden-information pseudo-horse-racing betting concept. You can sponsor Quibbles for a payout of their winnings! You can scout the participants of a race and make an honest bet! Or, hey, we suppose you can try to poison the favorite? Reading opponents and holding out for some luck makes this a lot more fun than we’d expected.
We’ve called out a few examples, but we’re making a point not to explain absolutely everything, because a lot of the joy of UFO 50 is stumbling upon and exploring a new game. It’s best approached as a goodie bag, with discovery and learning through playing as its key tenets. The difficulty is perhaps a bit higher than we’d like in spots for some of the games, but overall it really is a can’t-miss release.
UFO 50 launches on PC on September 18, 2024. It’s published by Mossmouth, and developed by Derek Yu, Jon Perry, Eirik Suhrke, Paul Hubans, Ojiro Fumoto and Tyriq Plummer.
UFO 50 is a collection of 50 single and multiplayer games from the creators of Spelunky, Downwell, Air Land & Sea, Skorpulac, Catacomb Kids, and Madhouse. Jump in and explore a variety of genres, from platformers and shoot 'em ups to puzzle games and RPGs.
Faux retro compilation UFO 50 is a can't-miss release.
- A 50-game selection menu, even if it all fits on the screen, benefits from filters. Thankfully, this has some! Move the cursor down to the bottom bar to access ‘em.
- Grimstone features an interesting RPG character select sequence.
- We… honestly can’t quite get our head around the “Garden” feature. It’s charming, though?
Published: Sep 16, 2024 11:00 am