UFO 50 is rather good

Created 29 Sep 2024 5:08 PM

OK, let's start this off with an up-front recommendation; UFO 50 is an absurdly generous retro-styled game collection, and if you have any love for or even just tolerance to games that look and play like they're on a system kinda like the NES, you're definitely going to find at least one game in here that you're going to just gobble up. Give it a go, and just... just don't give up and refund if Barbuta doesn't take your fancy. They stuck easily the most marmite-y game up front. Maybe start with Warptank, that's a good'un.

UFO 50 has a unique problem; helping you track your progress over... let me just check my notes here... 50 distinct games. Each with their own save system (or lack of), their own progression types, and their own secrets and mysteries. They need to give the player 50 answers to the question "how far through the game am I", as close to at-a-glance as possible, with no prior instruction, with games as distinct as a full-on RPG, a Metroidvania, a saveless exploration adventure, and a 10 minute long scrolling arcade platformer.

Because the UFO 50 devs are just really, exceptionally good games designers, they came up with an elegant and fun solution both to show the player how far they've progressed, and to nudge them forward with each one. Essentially, there are multiple distinct sub-goals, per game, with their own rewards. I call this Dust, Gift, Trophy, Cherry, for reasons that I'm about to explain, in this little list, right here:

1. First, each game cartridge is initially covered in cobwebs and dust. That fits the meta-narrative of the player having found an old console with a bunch of games in an old storage locker. Games you haven't played look this way.
2. The first time you play a game, a little animation plays of the debris being blown off, and from then on, in the menu, the game cart is shown in pristine condition.
3. Each game has a goal (listed in the game's sub-menu) which grants a Gift. This goal is generally something you can, or must, achieve before completing the game proper. The can't see whether you have a gift or not by just looking at the cartridges... But you can see them in the lightly-hidden "house" screen, where a little virtual pet will roam around and interact with the gifts you've unlocked. You can even push a button to bring up a grid of just the gifts, in the same layout as the default view of the carts, and where highlighting any (or the gaps where gifts are missing) shows which game it's tied to.
4. Actually beating a game (whatever that means for that game) grants a "trophy", along with changing the cart into a shiny gold colour. (The first time you do this, the "house" screen will also get a yellow trophy flag waving in the wind, with every game you beat being marked as an extra square displayed on it.)
5. Finally, every game also has an extra level of completeness, which gives you a "cherry". Unlike the Gifts and Trophies you aren't shown this up-front; instead, once you have the Trophy for a game, the goal to get this is added to that page of the game's sub-menu. This is generally something like getting the best ending, finding 100% of optional items, or getting first place in every round, that sort of thing; it's the mark that you haven't just finished the game, but completed it. Getting this turns the game cartridge red, and unlocks a mark on a new "Cherry" flag outside the "house"

I love this.

It's just a neat solution to the whole thing. Looking for something new to play? Pick a dusty cartridge. Wondering what you haven't digged into deeply yet? Checks for gaps in the Gifts. Not sure what you've finished, or what finished games still have secrets to uncover? Check for those Gold and Red carts. Big fan.