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What's good in UFO 50?

Yeah, most games did need a bit of time to grow on me. But most of those DID grow on me. Like, Party House made a weird first impression, until I understood what it actually was. Magic Garden became fun after a bit of trying. Waldorfs Journey seemed weird at first, but when I gave it a try, I enjoyed it a lot.
There are also games like Block Koala, Camouflage and Night House (is that the title? The adventure game), where it was immediately clear to me that I would like them.

And then there is Combatants, which is just not good, and Elfazars Hat, which I just find boring. The latter isn't a bad game, it's probably more me.

But point is, you need to give many of the games a bit of time.
 
Night Manor is the pointer-clicker. It is a very short but very good game.

(Protip: it is possible to get a better ending than what's required for cherry, but you have to be extremely cool pro at dealing with the killer!)
 
My only regret about ordering the physical edition is that I have to wait another six months to play it.
 
Kalir said:
Protip: it is possible to get a better ending than what's required for cherry, but you have to be extremely cool pro at dealing with the killer!)
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Pro tip addendum: if your friend tells you he read that you can cheese your way to this by resetting right before you die, that doesn’t work and you’ll have wasted your evening.
 
Adam said:
That bird game is just Root, right?
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Avianos is like Root, except if it was just an Eyrie Dynasties 1v1 complete with a rotating cast of leaders, and instead of turmoil you eventually just get crushed by a giant katamari of delightful little guys.
 
If you're not aware, Jon Perry (Air, Land & Sea) is one of the UFO 50 devs, and he definitely brings that board game sensibility to some of the designs here.
 
One of the most surprising things about the collection is how Jon Perry didn't just bring his board game expertise to games like Party House, Avianos, Diskonia, Bug Hunter (Bug Hunter is based off of an earlier board game prototype, looks almost exactly the same), etc. he even gave a GDC talk about tabletop design influences... but Jon also directed some of the best games in the collection that are quite removed from the tabletop space, like Mini & Max, Rail Heist, Overbold, and Mortol I.
 
Yeah, I was aware, he was is the biggest reason I was interested in this game in the first place. I have a print & play copy of AL&S, and I've heard good things about Spots and Hot Streak too. But, I know next to nothing about the games in UFO 50. I only heard of Party House because it was mentioned on the Dominion discord.
 
I played Avianos, and won in my first game. It definitely has some Root vibes, but it feels a lot more like a turn based strategy videogame to me. But it is cool nonetheless. I'll try again on harder difficulties.

I played 2 more games of Party House (first scenario), and I think I should be able to win on the next game. My strategy is to go for money early to get a bigger party, throw in some hippy girls to decrease the risk of cops showing up, eventually pivot to popularity (like adding all four dancers at once). My mistake in the last game was to start buying aliens too early. They are like green cards in Dominion - you want to keep building until you can buy a lot of them at once. I'm looking forward to checking out the other scenarios soon.

And I tried Barbuta again. I figured out how to move a single rock, which did not seem to have any effect on the game state. Otherwise I am still bashing my head against the cruel world. I kind of like it, though.
 
Patrick said:
And I tried Barbuta again. I figured out how to move a single rock, which did not seem to have any effect on the game state. Otherwise I am still bashing my head against the cruel world. I kind of like it, though.
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sickos.jpg
 
Ninpek is my first cherry. This one had a remarkable curve going from "Yup, this sure is a retro game" to "Wow, there are a ton of interesting things going on here," and I expect this is a thought process I'll be repeating a lot as I explore the rest of the collection.
 
Camouflage is my first clear and my first cherry. Nice little puzzle game, I kind of wish there was more to it. Meanwhile Block Koala just keeps going and going.

Currently chipping away at Block Koala and Warp Tank each session, before ending with another run in Pilot's Quest. I've touched each game chronologically up to Warp Tank, but bounced off most. I did enjoy Devilition, but I've yet to complete a ten round run.
 
I finally cherried Elfazar's Hat. I had a good time with it but the whole while I couldn't shake off this feeling that the experience is incomplete. Couldn't quite decide whether the powerup system or the powerups themselves were what felt most lacking. You would think the logical route for the purple cards is that two matches heal +1HP and three matches full heal plus the HP extend, but excluding the full heal must have been a deliberate design choice: Theoretically the system is fine for a short game like this where they want to maximize replayability and throw in some elements of chance, but it all feels so unsatisfying. The shield requires a lot of investment but vanishes too quickly, the bombs might be useful but you'd never know because you're concentrating on shooting and dodging so its difficult to do anything with them deliberately, and the helper certainly helps but not as much as you would like. The best upgrade is for your wand but when I first played I figured that if you keep making matches, the powerups would keep upgrading. Not so.

This is all nitpicking at the end of the day. In a 50 game compilation its already impressive the game has as much depth as it does, but it just doesn't go far enough for it to be a cut above the rest ala Mini & Max. My winning run was definitely a nail-biter. If you want any realistic chance of getting the cherry you've got to find hidden golden tickets to unlock the bonus stages. Even with those it was a close shave because the game's so unforgiving. I figured the game would pull one last surprise on me but when it did I was quite unprepared for it and spent my last life running around like a headless chicken. Your chances will improve with a second player and careful coordination.
 
Tonight I tried the collection for the first time! For the first few games, I set the collection to "random" and played in that order, then picked two by their cartridge look or title.

Randomly selected...
Rakshasa: Fascinating Contra / Ghosts n Goblins kinda thing. Love the unconventional lives/retries system. Didn't get real far, but I was already feeling a "just one more try!" urge.
Bug Hunter: First thought was like, 8-bit Metal Gear Ac!d, but it didn't end up being quite like that at all. Heckin brilliant puzzle-strategy thing, I could while away hours on this for sure.
Onion Delivery: Everywhere I'd looked, people said they hated this one, and I kinda get why. It's blisteringly difficult! I can see the charm in it, though -- doing well feels real good, if you can manage to get into a flow.
Attactics: Another unpopular one. I was entertained, though half the time when I won I couldn't tell you how; a great deal of my success and failure seemed to hinge more on random unit spawns rather than anything I was doing.
Hyper Contender: Mario Bros. (the not Super one) with that one hedgehog's rings? I pretty swiftly got a win with one character. Occasionally felt robbed by rings spawning exactly where the opponent needed them to be, but overall I was impressed with the tight design. Button mashing will avail you naught -- every keypress has tactical weight.

Picked at whim...
Star Waspir: Tough as nails shmup, as is traditional. The system of powerups and score multiplier is pretty fun! And it answers the question of "why not just hold down the fire button" in an interesting way, though I didn't often feel that tapping or firing in bursts was especially useful.
Mooncat: Oh okay yup weird control scheme, I hear y'all. Again though, the game sings when your muscle memory takes over and you start flowing through the level as if you had six more buttons to play with.
 
With Attactics, I think I just focused on individual units that spawned? Like the guys on horseback, I would put them in a row that was free at the moment. Or as the game shows you in the first level, put three basic units next to each other. Putting spear guys behind guys with shields. Etc...
Focusing on everything seems impossible.
 
Got gold on Mooncat, greatly enjoying that one. My only gripe is that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to consistently execute the aerial somersault, I keep ground pounding instead.

I'll probably need to look up a guide to work toward cherry, if I decide to do so. I found a couple of warps but they seemed to just loop back to the main linear path, so clearly I haven't quite gotten the knack for actually finding all these boards the game says it has.
 
And first cherry: Bug Hunter. So much fun once you figure out all the little rules of pushing and colliding and whatnot! I didn't end up using many of the more esoteric modules, like the bug spray, but I'm sure an expert player would know when they're worth picking up and how to deploy them.
 
Cleared Wave 3 of Star Waspir... which isn't even gold. Lordy, this thing is brutal.
 
Hit the guides, cherried Mooncat. I think I might've gotten the red egg running only on the hints that a red flower means a warp in that room, and leaping over the faint green skulls in the background reveals hidden paths, but the other one, whoo boy, highly unlikely I'd have puzzled out on my own.

EDITS:

...and Hyper Contender, which is mostly a matter of persistence imo. A fun one! Bet it'd be a roaring festival of curses in 2p mode, hah.

I got the top score on Star Waspir with my latest Wave 4 attempt, so it seems likely I'll cherry it if and when I ever do beat it, pff
 
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oh my god I finally cleared it.

Now I never have to touch this absolute torture chamber of a game ever again!

Thirteen hours and twenty minutes... 😭

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