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What's good in UFO 50?

My Switch copy (plus strategy guide) finally shipped, should be here Monday! I'm very excited to finally play the games everyone's been talking about for so long.
 
I beat Barbuta!

It took me the longest time to find necklace, but once I did the world opened up a lot and I was able to figure out the rest after that. The game feels so limited when you start, but now I feel like it is extremely open ended, from start to finish. I bet there are some really interesting runs possible.

In my final, successful attempt, I did not pick up pin, candy, trash, or the blood sword. I got the rod by using the secret passage through the game's title, and got to the boss using the key. I started the boss with just one egg missing and beat him with all of them broken. I'm sure I could do better if I tried again, but I think I'm done for now.
 
Congrats. Sounds like you enjoyed your journey. It is really a fascinating game. Looks so small, but has a surprising amount of stuff in it.

Did you map it out, or memorize it?
 
I had a rough map on my phone for the first part of the game:

IMG-5578.png


By the time I found the necklace I had that chunk of the game memorized, and I didn’t feel like any of the later areas were complicated enough to need it.
 
My copy of the UFO Companion arrived. Really nice little book, though it's more like a manual than a strategy guide (which is a good thing).
 
Been diving into Grimstone at last. There are moments I roar in frustration at it, but overall I think I like it. It's absolutely 100% an 8bit era RPG design, grindy and unforgiving ... but not as unforgiving as the games that inspire it. I can sometimes swallow getting my ass handed to me by some bullshit (hangmen, come tf on), given the penalty for a wipe is losing some money and travel time, not a complete reset to save point.
 
My copy finally arrived!

It's kind of overwhelming! I think I knew intellectually that there were 50 games in there, but seeing them all laid out makes me feel like I need to constantly be jumping around because there's so much game.
 
Prompted by the Archipelago implementation that mentioned Ninpek was a short game, I tried it. Whoa Nelly. Short if you're already highly skilled with it, perhaps! I could feel myself getting better at it as I failed over and over, but it's gonna take a while to get there. (Hopefully not as long a while as Star Waspir...)
 
I might be hitting tilt on Grimstone. I've been enjoying it, overall, but the next stretch of attrition/endurance gameplay has gotten to the point of being un-fun more often than not. After detonating the TNT and clearing the pass, I need to go from Ft Jason to the pass, through the pass, through a series of hole-in-the-ground mini-dungeons to find an isolated house, then trek back halfway through the mini-dungeons to a destination where I need to use a thing I got from the house. And none of that is a save point, so if I don't clear the entire sequence, I have to do everything over. That's too damn much. I think I made a big mistake not taking the encounter reduction skill when I had the chance. Maybe I should use a save editor to salvage my playthrough >.<
 
Maybe it's a fool's errand trying to keep my party alive. If I stash my money in the bank and throw my corpses at the gauntlet a while, at least I'll keep my experience points, and successive runs will get a little smoother.

...still gonna see if I can edit in a swap for that skill, tho. Curing paralysis is just not as important as I thought it would be.
 
whup, the save editor doesn't work on Linux, and my usual workarounds for such aren't helping. Full encounter rate it is XD
 
lol, that might be my favourite segment in the game. The only thing I've ever played that was able to recapture the feeling of the trip to find Hapsby in Phantasy Star as a child. Just a seemingly endless punishing slog with no clear direction and no idea when it will end. Absolutely loved it. Peak, as the kids say.

And I don't even know what skill you're talking about, but I definitely didn't have it, so I assume it's from a character that I didn't have in my party (presumably the Shaman or the Blue Mage, neither of which I had, since they seem to get all the fun toys).
 
Kalista said:
Maybe it's a fool's errand trying to keep my party alive. If I stash my money in the bank and throw my corpses at the gauntlet a while, at least I'll keep my experience points, and successive runs will get a little smoother.
Click to expand...
Thinking on it, is the implication that you're *not* currently doing this? Because I feel like you just described the core gameplay loop (store money in bank, fail forward), and if you're not engaging with that intended loop, you're definitely going to have a bad time. I don't recall how many wipes I had learning that section, but it was at least a few!
 
JBear said:
Thinking on it, is the implication that you're *not* currently doing this? Because I feel like you just described the core gameplay loop (store money in bank, fail forward), and if you're not engaging with that intended loop, you're definitely going to have a bad time. I don't recall how many wipes I had learning that section, but it was at least a few!
Click to expand...
Huh yeah?
I fight tooth and nail to keep from wiping, and I've barely used the Bank. So, indeed, it would be a change of approach!
 
Loved the bank. Interest in a JRPG, what a concept. Teach those kids about APRs.

Main issue is the maximum. What, did you run out of safes?
 
After playing a bunch of randomized Night Manor, I circled back to get cherry on it. Still not the best ending, though. Do I just need to get good at the QTE? Or is there a deterministic way to ensure that I don't have to nail it?
 
Kalista said:
After playing a bunch of randomized Night Manor, I circled back to get cherry on it. Still not the best ending, though. Do I just need to get good at the QTE? Or is there a deterministic way to ensure that I don't have to nail it?
Click to expand...
It's not possible to avoid needing to run and hide, since some actions on the critical path will immediately summon the killer. But it is possible to minimize the number of times you need to hide.
 
I beat Party House. What a treat! I generally tried to focus on avoiding trouble and finding ways to increase popularity quickly. In a lot of the scenarios I found that you can win without expanding the house size too much, so I generally didn't focus too much on money, or just enough to get a few extra spaces and then generate enough that I didn't go negative.

A+ game, I'd buy a standalone sequel if they ever release one.
 
Oh, and if anyone else loves Party House and wants something similar, the design is very close to Dominion. The 2nd edition sets and newer expansions are way better than early Dominion stuff, it's basically like a different game nowadays. The app is great too, it has excellent AI opponents and campaigns. If you are looking for a fun set of expansions, I'd get the 2nd edition Base game (free), 2nd editions of Guilds and Cornucopia ($5 each), and Rising Sun ($10). For $20 total you will have an excellent set of cards that you can get a ton of play out of.
 
You can always go for the cherry, if you need motivation to keep playing.

Also, there is a dark cherry mod, which adds super hard conditions for winning those. Most games don't get particularly creative ones, but for Party House, they add new scenarios.
 
Yeah, I will likely get the cherry at some point. I think I'm going to just beat games for now, and when I run out of new stuff I want to play I'll revisit my favorite games for cherries.
 
Going for the cherry is where Party House really comes alive, I found.
 
Patrick said:
Yeah, I will likely get the cherry at some point. I think I'm going to just beat games for now, and when I run out of new stuff I want to play I'll revisit my favorite games for cherries.
Click to expand...
Makes sense, I did the same thing. Mostly. I'm sure I immediately cherried the Big Bell Race, because really easy. And probably Overbold, which is by far my favourite game of the collection (which is more a compliment to Overbold, and not a critizism to the other games, which I all enjoyed to some degree).
I also got all the cherries, so that might be different too.
 
Mooncat: now I understand what it must feel like for someone to use a controller for the first time ever.
 
Oh yeah, outside of the boss fight (which felt like it went on too long) I enjoyed the experience. I can imagine playing some more, albeit without looking forward to more bosses.
 
When I started UFO50 I played a bit of each game, but by the time I got to #25 I was a overwhelmed and decided to dig in to a few of the early ones before checking out more. I've beaten a few and I've made a lot of progress in a bunch of others. But I didn't play any of the back half of the games for months.

Recently I was thinking about starting a new dungeon crawler, and I remembered that there was one in UFO 50, so I skipped ahead to Valbrace. It's great! I've made it to the second floor boss and I have some good spells and equipment. My only issue with it is that you really need to set aside a good chunk of time to make any progress, as it only saves when you go down a floor. So, this one is going to take a while to get through.

Since I had tried one of the later games, I decided to play a bit of everything up through game 40. The big hits for me have been Rock On Island and Pingolf. Neither of them are doing anything particularly new, they're just really well done versions of genres I already like. Rail Heist, Vainger, and Overbold seem awesome too, and I want to wait on taking a serious attempt at Grimstone since it is clearly a longer game.

Playing a bunch more at once just reinforced how good this game/collection is. I'll try the last 10 games out before too long.
 
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