UFO 50

[Old_Hunter_77]

UFO 50 is a game many years in the making. It is an indy game- arguably THE indy game- because it's, well, 50 games. 50 whole-a$$ games, in one game.

The conceit is it's the library of a made-up 80's console, so it's 8-bit style. This thread will be about my journey through this library, hopefully for your entertainment but also so that I can keep track of what I'm doing so I know which games to go back to.

'Cause... it's 50 games! And I won't like most of them because it's deliberately calling back 80's lo-fi and jank. Now, for context, I did have a Coleco Vision and an NES as a kid and it was this era of gaming that made me fall in love with the hobby but I was happy to leave 8-bit behind and never really wanted to go back. But the premise and promise of UFO 50 are too fascinating to pass by. Plus I have nothing else I really wanna play now and it's a good deal: $22.50 USD for 50 games.

The meta-game part is pretty much non-existent- you literally just open the game in Steam like any other and you have a menu of 50 games, that's it, that's the whole thing. Default sort is "chronological"- which means when the games were made in the fake history of this fake console. I'm going to go in that order, check out each one in turn, play them for however long I happen to have in each gaming session (which with my schedule can be literally any amount of time from 10 minutes in between work/chores or a whole rainy day of nothing else to do).

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Barbuta, "1982", single player platform adventure

You're a dude who can stab with a knife and jump and walk slow. You get 6 lives and when you die it's game over. The game is about exploring rooms which can have simple enemies, ladders and doors. Well that's as far as I found at least. I managed to find 12 different rooms (each game has a small bit of meta info of some kind of progress it seems in the main menu of UFO 50).

Since this is the first/earliest game it's clearly intended to be brutally difficult and annoying and I can't imagine anyone but the most hardcore of nostalgists or gamer pros or fans of the project sticking with this one. I treat this more as a sort of tribute and reverence for a point in history- 2 years after Rogue set the standard for "hardcore gamer" means it's tough as hell and when you lose you LOSE.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Bug Hunter, "1983", 1v1 (single player vs computer or player vs player) strategy game.

You're like a space man or something on a grid and you have to eliminate enemies, the bugs. The idea I think is you have a certain set of moves, which include moving around the grid and attacking, and there are variations of each. You get some (I think it's random) and a currency of how much to use them, and you "buy" more moves. You have to take out the bugs before they transform and take over.
The UI is confusing and this kind of thing is where the whole hook of UFO 50 comes in- is it "bad" on purpose, because it's supposed to feel like a 1983 game, or am an idiot and it's actually not bad? Strategy games are not my thing anyway but the premise is actually interesting. I imagine it could be really fun with another person. As will likely be the case with most of the games in UFO 50, I'm concluding this is a pretty neat concept but not actually fun for me to play (this is why I'm not rating any of these games, it's all way too subjective).

 

[Drathnoxis]

Pfft, only 50? Action 52 had 2 more than that.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Feels like they just made one of these fuckers:

Epic Retro Party 500-in-1 Plus More Bonus Crappy Games | 1UP Retro

1upretro.com

 

[BrawlMan]

UFO 50 is a game many years in the making. It is an indy game- arguably THE indy game- because it's, well, 50 games. 50 whole-a$$ games, in one game.

The conceit is it's the library of a made-up 80's console, so it's 8-bit style. This thread will be about my journey through this library, hopefully for your entertainment but also so that I can keep track of what I'm doing so I know which games to go back to.

'Cause... it's 50 games! And I won't like most of them because it's deliberately calling back 80's lo-fi and jank. Now, for context, I did have a Coleco Vision and an NES as a kid and it was this era of gaming that made me fall in love with the hobby but I was happy to leave 8-bit behind and never really wanted to go back. But the premise and promise of UFO 50 are too fascinating to pass by. Plus I have nothing else I really wanna play now and it's a good deal: $22.50 USD for 50 games.

The meta-game part is pretty much non-existent- you literally just open the game in Steam like any other and you have a menu of 50 games, that's it, that's the whole thing. Default sort is "chronological"- which means when the games were made in the fake history of this fake console. I'm going to go in that order, check out each one in turn, play them for however long I happen to have in each gaming session (which with my schedule can be literally any amount of time from 10 minutes in between work/chores or a whole rainy day of nothing else to do).

​

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Feels like they just made one of these fuckers:

Epic Retro Party 500-in-1 Plus More Bonus Crappy Games | 1UP Retro

1upretro.com

The idea of these things was certainly an inspiration for UFO 50, yes.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Ninpek, "1983", Arcade action platformer, 1 and 2 players

And here is where the nostalgia hits HARD.
As an 80's kid, arcades is where my video game habit was formed, and quarters were the 80's kid equivalent of cigarettes in prison. Also the obsession with ninjas.
Ninpek uses the forced side scrolling thing of propelling you across a world of platforms and enemies and you can only move back and forth, jump, and attack by throwing ninja stars. It's brutally difficult, you get three lives and then it's over, but there's no quarters to continue!

When the Souls dorks lecture you about how "Actually Souls games are easy 'cause old games are hard" they are referring to how some of the early console games just used arcade game logic, and arcade games were designed to eat your quarters. But without quarters, it just meant starting over and over until you gave up or, in the rare case, beat the game by memorizing everything. Well, Ninpek is one of those games.

My favorite parts are the music, which is vaguely-problematic "japanese/ninja" as imagined by an American video game composer. And I like that when you die you come back as a floaty ghost that can shoot some kind of balls at enemies for a few seconds, so the action keeps going.

Of course since I barely have the patience for more modern video game mechanics I won't be coming back to this but it is a really cool implementation of an old school arcade game.

 

[BrawlMan]

Ninpek uses the forced side scrolling thing of propelling you across a world of platforms and enemies and you can only move back and forth, jump, and attack by throwing ninja stars. It's brutally difficult, you get three lives and then it's over, but there's no quarters to continue!

So like Son Son.

quarters were the 80's kid equivalent of cigarettes in prison

In some places during the 90s, kids or teens really addicted to quarters or spend them senselessly on games we'd call quarter heads. The gaming equivalent of crackheads. Always asking for quarters or IOUs for their next fix of dopamine.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Paint Chaser "1983" 1-2 player "arcade" style

It's like a Snake/Nibbles game but you're a car and there are other cars and enemies that paint the grid area one color while you drive over and paint another color and the goal is to end each timed level with more of your color. What makes this really neat is you can "kill" the enemies by just touching them and they also spawn more so the whole thing is deciding when to go after which enemies. Then each level adds other things like switches, blocks, weapons, etc.
I got up to the 7th level and it's the first game I got to enter my three initials in a high score board!
Super fun!

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Magic Garden "1984" 1p "arcade"


A "girl" game- because, well, you play as a girl, in a garden, and it was around this time when games were considered toys and toy marketing was brutally gendered, including games. So I like that reference. Also interesting in the game description how they cite this as the game in the fake console's history where they have more colors and higher tech. The game art looks very cool and reverential to that.

The game concept is also neat- it's also kind of like a Snake, and this is why I'm playing the games in "chronological" order- to see how they re-use or build on previous games. You walk around this garden picking up creatures and dropping them off at areas that are randomly selected by the game to drop them off while avoiding enemies and you can't touch the border of the grid.

Unfortunately, the game is prohibitively frustrating to actually play. One hit death, and slow to respond controls. I also couldn't figure out to actually "drop off" a critter since the controls only list two buttons so I think you have to time the random blinking areas with walking over them, and I couldn't get it to happen one single time. Oh well.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Mortol "1984" 1-2p, platform puzzler

What I expect will be a running theme through these games, especially in the early going, is that here we have a game with a really cool concept but is way too hard for me to stick with. The description also says it's the "first" Mortol game which means there are sequels and I look forward to see if they have QoL things to make it easier.

The goal is to progress through levels but you're not one guy you're like an army of guys. A helicopter drops a guy and you control the guy and platform around enemies and obstacles. The only things you can do are kill yourself by either zipping forward, turning into a block of stone, or exploding. These three actions clear the way for your next guys. You start with 20 guys and end each level with however many guys you have left, and there are blocks you can hit to give you more guys.
It took me a while to just get through the very first level at all, with 16 guys left, and the prospect of actually not just figuring out how to get past each level but then realizing you have to figure out how to get through the early levels with enough guys to make it through the later levels (kind of like SIfu with the aging mechanic) was overwhelming.

The most poignant observation about UFO 50 is that it is nostalgia done right- it doesn't just remind you of things from the past but the feeling of some of those things but with a new way. This progression mechanic is not overused so much that in and of itself it's nostalgic but the result is that it reminds me of how some of those old games were brutally difficult like this but since most kids did not have access to a LOT of games all the time, the kids that were dedicated to gaming would push through these difficult games. That we would get together with our friends and help each other figure it out. Today, I see this game, go "well that's cool," and move on, but at 10 years old I would be playing this game with my friends for like 3 months.

 

[BrawlMan]

Ninpek, "1983", Arcade action platformer, 1 and 2 players

I almost beat this one. At least you can get extra lives.

I did beat Hyper Contender . The one on one platform fighter. I chose knife girl. The last boss is just a mirror match.

Others I've played:

• Rakshasa - A Ghost n Goblins type game. I rather just play GnG. I apperciate the idea, but the guy you control is way too slow and you only get the one life. Yes, you can ressurect, but it gets harder each time. Honestly, Haunted Castle Revisited is a better modern retro throwback GnG game than this.
• Owl Force - A unique game where the gameplay changes based on whatever character you're playing as. It does TMNT gameboy thing where if you person gets captured, you can rescue them. Each person gets two lives, and that's it.
• Elfazar's Hat - It's basically Pocky and Rocky. Fun run n' gun game that at least gives you lives and 3 hits before you die. I didn't finish it, but I'll get back to it some other time.
• Rail Heist is my second favorite and is addicting as fuck! It's a puzzle stealth game where you got to rob trains, try not to alery the deputies or keep them distracted. You can kill them, but you get no bonus for it. Stunning won't hurt your no kill bonus. I think I am stuck on the last stage.
• Kick Club is basically Snow. Bros or Bubble Bobble combined with soccer/football. It's fun, but you only get 3 lives and no continues. You die; you start all over again.
• Star Waspir - Vertical SHMUP that is way too hard. I am not going back to this one.
• Seaside Drive is my favorite. An arcade shooter where you keep your fire power strong by drifting. You read that right. It's a tough one, but much more fun and fair.
• Fist Hell - It's game trying to be a cross between Double Dragon and Kunio-Kun, but like Scott Pilgrim, it does not work. Hit detection is wonky and you only get the one life. Die, and you have to start the stage all over again. Even if you made it to a new section. What's worse, is that you lose all your money when you die, so good luck upgrading anything. Whoever designed this, should've known better than to pull this bullshit off. At least 8 bit brawlers like Double Dragon II (via cheat code in Western versions), TMNT III: Manhattan Project, and even Mighty Final Fight gave you lives and continues. This game is better than none of them. Even the average or mediocre NES brawlers are more fun than this or are fairer by comparison.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

I almost beat this one. At least you can get extra lives.

I did beat Hyper Contender . The one on one platform fighter. I chose knife girl. The last boss is just a mirror match.

Others I've played:

• Rakshasa - A Ghost n Goblins type game. I rather just play GnG. I apperciate the idea, but the guy you control is way too slow and you only get the one life. Yes, you can ressurect, but it gets harder each time. Honestly, Haunted Castle Revisited is a better modern retro throwback GnG game than this.
• Owl Force - A unique game where the gameplay changes based on whatever character you're playing as. It does TMNT gameboy thing where if you person gets captured, you can rescue them. Each person gets two lives, and that's it.
• Elfazar's Hat - It's basically Pocky and Rocky. Fun run n' gun game that at least gives you lives and 3 hits before you die. I didn't finish it, but I'll get back to it some other time.
• Rail Heist is my second favorite and is addicting as fuck! It's a puzzle stealth game where you got to rob trains, try not to alery the deputies or keep them distracted. You can kill them, but you get no bonus for it. Stunning won't hurt your no kill bonus. I think I am stuck on the last stage.
• Kick Club is basically Snow. Bros or Bubble Bobble combined with soccer/football. It's fun, but you only get 3 lives and no continues. You die; you start all over again.
• Star Waspir - Vertical SHMUP that is way too hard. I am not going back to this one.
• Seaside Drive is my favorite. An arcade shooter where you keep your fire power strong by drifting. You read that right. It's a tough one, but much more fun and fair.
• Fist Hell - It's game trying to be a cross between Double Dragon and Kunio-Kun, but like Scott Pilgrim, it does not work. Hit detection is wonky and you only get the one life. Die, and you have to start the stage all over again. Even if you made it to a new section. What's worse, is that you lose all your money when you die, so good luck upgrading anything. Whoever designed this, should've known better than to pull this bullshit off. At least 8 bit brawlers like Double Dragon II (via cheat code in Western versions), TMNT III: Manhattan Project, and even Mighty Final Fight gave you lives and continues. This game is better than none of them. Even the average or mediocre NES brawlers are more fun than this or are fairer by comparison.

Yay another person playing this, woo!

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

A few more from "1984":

Velgress
The first game with procedural generation and so we introduce "rogueli*e" mechanics. This is jumping up and shooting at platforms and as you go up the spiky ground moves up with you, and all of the platforms disappear so it's faced pace and quick thinking. The jump height is generous and there is a double jump and you can shoot straight and up through some blocks so it really encourages aggressive quick moving. It's pretty cool, but of course you die in one touch of the spikey ground.

Planet Zoldath
This time the procedural generation is used to generate rooms in a walking around adventure game where the progression is to just pick up various tools you can use to manipulate enemies and NPCs. I like that one of the items is a "gun" but it transforms enemies into little harmless creatures so I wonder if they're going for a wholesome adventure here. But of course you can "die" and have to start over with no resources. It's pretty interesting. Most importantly for the meta the description says it's the first but unnamed appearance of characters that will be in later games.

Attactics
A 1v1 strategy game where blocky soldiers appear and automatically move forward and you can move them up and down. The goal being to over whelm the other side in enough rows to capture more rows first. It's like War (the card game) meets checkers. Simple but cute but would only be fun for me against real humans.

Divilition
A simple and clever game that makes me feel like an idiot. You have to put various explody characters on a grid in smart positions that will denote to destroy enemies, but you have to remember which spots each one will explode so that when you're ready to detonate it creates a satisfying chain to beat the level. Junior high school me would have loved this (old-ass me is too tired lol).

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Kick Club. "1984," 1/2 players

Arcade style platform action where you clear areas by kicking a soccer ball at them. What makes it cool is that the ball bounce is generous so it's easy to take things out, but then it's also easy to get hit. The game challenge vs progression comes in increasingly tricky areas and that you don't start with the ball.
So that whole game is kicking the ball and then recovering it, while avoiding dangers. They also introduce that pac-man thing where you can wrap around the borders of the screen. I once took out all the enemies by accidentally making the ball scrolling down infinitely until all the enemies flew into it, hah-hah.

Since the arcade style means you get three lives and start over I don't know how much I'll actually go back to it but, as with all of the ones that offer 2 players, I imagine that is the best way to play it.
It kind of feels like playing pool/billiards where, yeah, you can knock out things easy, but mastery means positioning yourself for the next attack. Pretty neat.

Avianos, "1985," strategy

And boy howdy is it 1985!
It's one of those games where you're thrown a bunch of icons and things and you gotta figure out what everything means in context.
You and the opponent take turns and each turn is a sequence of decisions that basically is a narrowing branch of tactical decisions. The goal is to capture and hold spaces. The decision structure is great because logically it's just a series of menus but it's dressed in the game's iconography.

What made it really clever is that I was able to win the first (and only) game, so that served as a tutorial. By the end of it I started to get what the game was asking of me without actually learning all the details, so the learning/progression path is clear if you're willing to stick with it.

It's the most UFO-50 game so far: all the confusion of the 1980's but with just enough clarity and purpose to ease some of the worst aspects of it.

Mooncat, "1985"

Description says it's the successor to Barbuta, the very first game, and this is where we are in game-nerd art metal territory because this game is wild.
Instead of super-slow, painfully awkward "platforming" and brutally limited lives, you get a control scheme that is bonkers but I think will be brilliant to patient and clever gamers- the real real, the hardcore.
D-pad (all of it) is left, face btns are right, but combo-ing them does jumps and stomps, but I think depending on direction?

I dunno I certainly don't have the time or patience to figure it out but it's cool that it's there for those that do. This is would be like me insisting to my casual music friends that a 15 minutes John Coltrane solo is worth sitting through but any normal person would understand why that appeals to a narrow audience.

Bushio Ball, "1985", sport

One of the big ones that I saw a lot of reviewers get hooked on and... yeah, count me in. It's tennis/pong but you're samurai hitting a ball with a sword but there's also special attacks and different characters with different special attacks. So the 14 yr old Street Fighter 2 player in me was awoken and now I want to understand how to use and beat each of them.

Awesome, fun game.

 

[BrawlMan]

Bushio Ball, "1985", sport

One of the big ones that I saw a lot of reviewers get hooked on and... yeah, count me in. It's tennis/pong but you're samurai hitting a ball with a sword but there's also special attacks and different characters with different special attacks. So the 14 yr old Street Fighter 2 player in me was awoken and now I want to understand how to use and beat each of them.

Awesome, fun game.

That one I have no tried yet. I'll try it after dinner.

Magic Garden "1984" 1p "arcade"


A "girl" game- because, well, you play as a girl, in a garden, and it was around this time when games were considered toys and toy marketing was brutally gendered, including games. So I like that reference. Also interesting in the game description how they cite this as the game in the fake console's history where they have more colors and higher tech. The game art looks very cool and reverential to that.

The game concept is also neat- it's also kind of like a Snake, and this is why I'm playing the games in "chronological" order- to see how they re-use or build on previous games. You walk around this garden picking up creatures and dropping them off at areas that are randomly selected by the game to drop them off while avoiding enemies and you can't touch the border of the grid.

Unfortunately, the game is prohibitively frustrating to actually play. One hit death, and slow to respond controls. I also couldn't figure out to actually "drop off" a critter since the controls only list two buttons so I think you have to time the random blinking areas with walking over them, and I couldn't get it to happen one single time. Oh well.

I raged quit and found it too frustrating. It's a cross between Flicky and Snake, and could've been done so much better.

 

[BrawlMan]

Bushio Ball, "1985", sport

One of the big ones that I saw a lot of reviewers get hooked on and... yeah, count me in. It's tennis/pong but you're samurai hitting a ball with a sword but there's also special attacks and different characters with different special attacks. So the 14 yr old Street Fighter 2 player in me was awoken and now I want to understand how to use and beat each of them.

Awesome, fun game.

Update on that. Fun game, but one of the characters are fucking cheap as fuck! Raizo! I was stuck fighting him for half an hour! His special covers too much range and can cancel whatever you're using. I manage to beat him using Ayumi. The fast chick with the knives. All the other opponents didn't give me nearly as much trouble as Raizo.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Puzzle games, which are not my thing, but it's interesting to see some designs. I had trouble figuring out some of the basic controls and sub-goals without detail instructions.
I'm a dumby dumb dumb who spent like 5 minutes with each.


Block Koala

You ever had those little plastic toys/games where you have tiles and plastic pieces in each tile and there's one less piece than tiles, so the goal is to move everything around to form a picture? And then the whole game is just how to movie block of squares around, basically.

Well, this feels like that, but it's a cute koala bear and different level designs.

Camouflage

You're a lizard and you gotta move to a spot, but creatures will eat you if you are in their line of sight. The only ability is to switch to the same color as whatever you're standing on to hide. You can also pick up things that I guess are supposed to help you but I couldn't figure out how to use any of them.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Campanella, arcade

You're a little space ship operated by gravity control, meaning you gotta press a button to prevent from falling. That, the d-pad, and a melee attack button are how you navigate levels. It's really hard! Well, it's the kind of thing you get good at, though. Really the kind of game we ate up as kids back in the day. Might come back to this one.

Golfaria, adventure? sport? physics arcade?

Ok we are really get into clever/cute territory.
It's like a Zelda adventure but you're a golf ball, with physics based movement reaction. You have to move around to figure out what's going on but you get a number of strokes and you lose when you run out. You get a birdie by hitting an actual bird. And golf balls are sentient. It's genius. I hate it.

The Big Bell Race
Campanella racing game, perhaps inspired by Mario Kart? Very clever, very good. Too hard for me since it means squinting at all the sprites and figuring wtf is going on but in my first attempt I ended in 2nd place so, not bad for me.