• 22 Jan, 2026 *

UFO 50 is a collection of games developed between 1982 and 1989 by UFO Soft for the LX console series. Except that, of course, neither UFO Soft nor the LX consoles ever existed.

This post is my review of this incredible mix of alternative history with retro-gaming. I’m assuming that anyone reading it has already played UFO 50, so I won’t bother explaining what each game is about, and there will be spoilers.

Contents

• A note on how I played UFO 50
• The tier list
• The games
• The meta-game
• Final thoughts
• Resources

A note on how I played UFO 50

I decided early on that I wanted to get all the garden gifts, for two reasons:

• I felt I had to have some criteria to consider I had finished the whole game, and I guessed (correctly) that gilding every title would be an insane amount of effort.
• I wanted something that forced me to engage with every game to minimum degree, even for entries that I didn’t find immediately compelling.

After achieving that goal I can say that the motivation made sense but the actual decision didn’t. It wasn’t a terrible idea either, but I don’t think it was the best way to play UFO 50. I’ll talk more about this at the end.

With that clarification out of the way, let’s move to the games. But first, THE TIER LIST.

The tier list

(Every time I look at this list I feel like I should change something. Consider it a rough ordering.)

The games

1. Barbuta 🔗 🪙

The first time I played Barbuta I hadn’t decided yet to collect all the garden gifts. After playing it a little I said "ok, I get it, a super old, clunky proto-metroidvania developed by a single guy" and closed it.

I returned to Barbuta twice after that. I didn’t think I had "got" it, and the fact that it was the first game made it feel somewhat special. The second time I played a bit more but got stuck and quit. The third time I could make more progress and kept playing until I defeated the boss and got gold. I saw the cherry requirement (win with max eggs), thought "nop", and that was it.

At some point I watched a video of a complete playthrough to see what I had missed, and I definitely don’t regret stopping playing when I did, mainly because there are many nonsensical puzzles I wouldn’t have figured out on my own. There is only one thing I found interesting: they included a mimic1.

2. Bug Hunter 🔗 🪙

One of my favorite things about UFO 50 is that none of the games include instructions or tutorials. What’s more, in a few cases most of the fun is in figuring out how to play it. Bug Hunter is one of those cases. And it’s not just about learning the main mechanics; you keep figuring out things that make it more fun. For example, it took me a while to realize that certain actions pushed enemies, which in turn allows you to throw them down holes.

The team describes UFO 50 as "8-bit aesthetic with new ideas and modern game design". I don’t think Barbuta really fits that description, but Bug Hunter absolutely does. In that sense, this is the first true UFO 50 game, whereas Barbuta feels like it’s included for the sake of realism: an amateurish but enthusiastic first game.

I gilded this one without a lot of effort, but didn’t like it enough to try to cherry it.

3. Ninpek 🔗 🎁

This is the first of many games in my "got the gift and moved on" list. I don’t have much to say about it. I liked the fact that you can shoot with your ghost when you die, but I doubt it’s an original idea. And I found the auto-scrolling mechanism mildly annoying. That’s it.

4. Paint Chase 🔗 🎁

There is a pretty good video that makes the following claim: many UFO 50 games have a non-monotonic difficulty curve. Or, in plain English, that level 3 is not always harder than level 2. This matches my experience with Paint Chase. The first levels are super easy, then I had a hard time beating the ones that follow, and after getting over that hump the game seemed to get easy again.

At first, I thought this was just me understanding the game better, making me feel it had gotten easier. But now I wonder if that video is right and that happened by design.

Ten levels or so later the difficulty was up again and I lost. I had received the gift and didn’t play more after that.

One reason I didn’t love this game is the way its mechanics evolve: the new elements that show up as you progress feel like extra complexity that doesn’t add to the fun. It just gets more complicated and that’s it.

5. Magic Garden 🔗 🎁

Magic Garden is one of those UFO 50 games that can be described as "game 1 + game 2", in this case Snake + Pac-Man. It’s also my favorite entry in that category. None of the other mash-up games (Kick Club, Bushido Ball, Golfaria, Seaside Drive) seem as good.

I only got the garden gift, but this is one of the few titles where I’m tempted to go back and try to get gold.

6. Mortol 🔗 🍒

Oh Mortol. Mortol, Mortol, Mortol. Why do you have to be so good and be over so quickly? Why do you have to be the best game in the collection and show up so early? You made the rest of the UFO 50 experience worse, because I kept waiting for something I loved as much and it never happened.

This was one of my straight-to-cherry games: I gilded it, saw the cherry requirement, thought "that sounds impossible, but also fun?", and then I pulled it off without that much effort. Which is a pity. I could’ve used any excuse to play Mortol more. Maybe someday we’ll have a "Mortol Maker"? A "Mortol 3" that is a worthy sequel? One can only hope.

It’s hard to explain why I love this game so much, but I’ll try:

• It was a "love at first description" kind of game: I heard about its mechanics in a podcast and immediately thought it sounded fun.
• I then played it and it quickly surpassed my expectations.
• That was already impressive, but then it kept getting even better! I loved the carry-over life mechanics and how they incentivize going back to previous stages.
• On top of that, the levels are so well-designed that replaying them is even more fun than the first time.

I love Mortol so much. It’s not just my favorite game in the collection, it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played.

7. Velgress 🔗 🎁

This was the first time I had second thoughts about collecting all the garden gifts. I liked the game, but getting that achievement was hard as fuck. And having to start the whole game every time felt unnecessary, even if I understand the Nintendo-hardness appeal of that design choice.

Still, Velgress is great. It had been a while since I had gotten a sore thumb from playing a platformer.

8. Planet Zoldath 🔗 🪙

I’m... not proud of gilding this one? I didn’t feel like playing more after getting the gift (finding the three map parts), but I did it anyway and then I finished it.

Probably one of the few "bad" games in UFO 50, even if it’s not the worst (🐜).

9. Attactics 🔗 🍒

Second cherry. Fantastic game. I honestly don’t know if the cherry requirement was easy, or if I liked it so much that it felt that way. I’d totally watch an Attactics tournament, and 2P must be fun.

10. Devilition 🔗 🍒

Third cherry! At this point I thought I was going to get a lot of these (spoiler alert: I only got seven).

This was the first time I used the terminal. The credits mention the WEAK-TOWN code, which you can use to start a game with no villagers. I played and beat that too. I didn’t understand how the terminal worked yet, so I thought I would get some kind of achievement, but of course nothing happened. Still, it was a good excuse to play it a bit more. (I’m glad there’s no infinite mode, I would waste hours on it.)

As with Attactics, I don’t know if Devilition is not that hard, or if it felt easy because I enjoyed it so much. In other games, like Caramel Caramel, the opposite happened.

11. Kick Club 🔗 🎁

Another obvious mash-up, this time Bubble Bobble + Football. I’m sure this one is way more fun in two-player mode.

The gift difficulty here is in the sweet spot: hard enough to make you play more than you would by default, but not as hard as to feel like a chore. This forces you to learn the game better and find some cool surprises ("wait, I can hit the ball with my head??").

12. Avianos 🔗 🎁

Like Bug Hunter, it’s fun to figure out how the game is played without any help whatsoever. But once I learned the basics I didn’t feel like spending much more time with it. It’s not a bad game, it’s just not my kind of thing: I didn’t want to learn all the details of each god and what combos worked better and so on. I rushed the gift (maxing out a god) and moved on.

As a side comment: I learned from some review that you can destroy your own base if you think you’ll lose a battle. That’s such a cool idea.

13. Mooncat 🔗 🪙

The r/ufo50 subreddit runs a poll where the community ranks every game in the collection. Here are the latest results.

I feel I’m quite aligned with that ranking, but there are exceptions and Mooncat is one: while it’s the 3rd best ranked game in the list, to me it felt more like a 7 out of 10. The controls are amusing and creative—you can tell the game originated in a game jam—2, but once I learned them it felt like a normal platformer.

After finishing the game I noticed I hadn’t received the gift yet. The requirement ("finding a warp") seemed obscure because I hadn’t seen anything like that. So I played it again and found a warp by sheer luck. I don’t remember if I kept playing after that or if I just packed my gift and moved on.

14. Bushido Ball 🔗 🎁

I’m neither into sports games nor fighting games, but this one was fun. Getting the gift was hard in a good way. Sometime later I played it with a friend and confirmed what I already suspected: it’s even better in two-player. Another one I’d watch a tournament of.

15. Block Koala 🔗 🎁

Puzzle games are up my alley, including sokoban-likes, so I was enjoying this entry. But then I spent one hour on a puzzle and decided I didn’t want to put that much time into a single title. Plus, I don’t think the game is actually good; I’m just a sucker for puzzles. Similar to Paint Chase, new mechanics were just new mechanics and they never felt like more than the sum of its parts.

16. Camouflage 🔗 🎁

Cute concept but its gameplay quickly becomes mechanical. Got the gift and moved on.

17. Campanella 🔗 🎁

I couldn’t help having high expectations about Campanella. I had hovered over the full list of titles out of curiosity, so I knew there were three entries with that name. The backstory of Planet Zoldath already foreshadows its importance. And the in-game description of Campanella itself is promising:

A surprise success that inspired our rebrand to UFO Soft. It was later packaged with the LX-III.

But then the game is... not that fun? I mean, it’s ok, and I can buy into the idea of it being an unexpected hit that became iconic, but I wish I had liked it much more.

I’ll admit though that I enjoyed getting the gift ("Amass 15 spare ships"). It forces you to get better at piloting the spaceship, and to do things like finding all the hidden coffees. But I didn’t keep playing after that.

18. Golfaria 🔗 🎁

Golfaria isn’t the best mash-up (that would be Magic Garden), but it has the distinction of being the weirdest and most creative one: Zelda + Golf.

The first minutes I played it were frustrating, but once I got the idea it became fun. Later I got stuck and, for the first time in my UFO 50 gameplay, I had to use a guide. It’s not particularly hard, but the cost of moving combined with the lack of a map makes exploration tedious.

As with many other entries, I didn’t feel like playing more after getting the gift, but I enjoyed the time I spent with it.

19. The Big Bell Race 🔗 🪙

File it alongside Zoldath in the category of "I didn’t like it, but kept playing after getting the gift and got the trophy somehow".

Like Barbuta, I think the meta of including the game is better than the game itself: it makes so much sense for the company to capitalize on Campanella’s success by quickly releasing a racing game based on it.

20. Warptank 🔗 🎁

UFO 50 made me realize how much I like games that combine puzzle and skill elements. Mortol is, of course, the best game in that category, and Rail Heist is the runner-up. But Warptank has a good shot of getting bronze.

Getting the gift takes some time, but I didn’t mind it. And the requirement (beating the renegade) makes you go through a memorable boss battle.

I didn’t keep playing much more after that though. I think this was in part due to how samey the level selection feels. It’s hard to get a sense of where you are, where you have to go, or how much you have progressed. Even the visual difference between a level that was completed and one that wasn’t is hard to notice. All of this results in a lack of "pull" to keep playing, or at least that was my experience.

21. Waldorf’s Journey 🔗 🪙

I’m not gonna lie: the moment I started this game, I thought "ok, this one is going to suck". Then I lost and saw one of my favorite "Game Over" screens ever. It only got better after that.

I kept playing after getting the gift and got really close to the finish line. And... I hadn’t realized you could flap in mid-air to maneuver Waldorf. After discovering that, I easily beat it and got to the beautiful ending. (The cherry ending, which I didn’t get, is also great. It’s worth looking up some video that shows it.)

22. Porgy 🔗 🪙

An underwater metroidvania, what’s not to like? I loved it at first, but then the backtracking completely killed the fun.

I’m not a game designer, but my intuition is that metroidvanias should do one or both of the following when it comes to backtracking:

• Make it less necessary as you progress, e.g. by having fast travel. There’s a bit of that in Porgy, with the extra bases, but it’s not enough. (I say "extra bases" in plural even if I only found one, because I assume there are more.)
• Make it more fun as you progress. This can be accomplished by moving faster or by crushing enemies that used to give you a hard time. Again, Porgy does this, but not in a meaningful way.

I also found the limit to upgrades annoying and unnecessary. Vainger, a much better metroidvania, has similar constraint, but it does it in a more fun and effective way.

23. Onion Delivery 🔗 🎁

One of the only two games in UFO 50 that I actively hated (I’m sure you can guess the other one). I got the gift through a mix of pain and luck, and then closed it for good.

There are a few things here that I did like. Learning the city’s layout is nice. The extra difficulties you get in the levels after the first one are cool. But the core of the game is so hard that it prevented me from enjoying those ideas.

24. Caramel Caramel 🔗 🎁

Like Onion Delivery, I found Caramel Caramel hard in a way I don’t enjoy. And the fact that they were next to each other didn’t help. To be fair, I don’t like space shooters, so it’s entirely possible that this is a great game that just wasn’t for me. And I’m not sure if the game is as difficult as I found it or if it’s just the fact that I don’t like the genre that made it feel harder.

25. Party House 🔗 🍒

I played a good chunk of UFO 50 without reading anything online, so I had no idea that this was by far the most loved game by the community. It was fun to figure out the mechanics ("oh, a blackjack party planner") and to try to beat the first level to get the gift, but I moved on after that.

By the time I finished the collection, though, I had seen so much praise for this game that I decided to give it a second chance. Oh god.

Let me get the unpopular opinion out of the way first. While I agree that this game is incredibly fun, I think it’s more addictive than good. It is good, but I wouldn’t say in a million years that it’s better than Mortol or than Rail Heist.

That being said: I got gold, then cherry, and then played a lot more just for fun. So there’s that. I feel like going back to play it right now and get the adrenaline rush of filling a party with cheerleaders and stylists.

26. Hot Foot 🔗 🎁

Second sports game (I think?) and I liked it a lot, but the community hates it for some reason. I’ve heard that it used to be terrible and they patched it up. I definitely played the fixed version, so that might explain it.

I got the gift after winning three matches. I kept playing, got to the finals, and lost. I didn’t give it another try, but I’m glad I got to the last match because the "plot twist" is so funny: the character no one picked at the beginning, plus their homemade robot, are the final contenders.

27. Divers 🔗 🎁

It was immediately clear that this was a grinding game and, while I appreciated the change of pace, I got bored after some time. I hadn’t obtained the gift yet, which requires finding a certain item, so I googled where to get it. And I’m glad that I did; the item is behind a hidden wall that I would’ve never discovered on my own.

28. Rail Heist 🔗 🍒

Without a doubt, my favorite game in UFO 50 after Mortol. And they have several things in common:

• Both are puzzle games that involve a bit of execution skill.
• Their level design is incredible.
• Replayability is high. In Mortol it comes from the pressure to finish levels with as many lives as possible. In Rail Heist, the star system means you have to play each stage multiple times using different approaches.
• Both are so fucking good that they felt super short.

Anecdotally, two very different people saw me playing this and said the same thing: "that looks fun". One was my wife, who is a gamer but who is not into arcade-like/retro games. The other was a 65-year old relative that I doubt has played a console game in his life. That was interesting.

29. Vainger 🔗 🎁

The best metroidvania in the collection, unless you consider Mini & Max in that genre. Also: coolest intro?

After playing Vainger for a while, I was sure I was going to finish it: the level design is good, the upgrades system gives it some depth, and the gravity swapping mechanics never stop being fun. But then I got stuck and didn’t feel like using a guide.

My problem was the map: either I didn’t know how to read it or it was really hard to figure out some things. For example, is there a way to know the locations of the teleporters that take you to another sector? If there is, I couldn’t find it. I mentioned in the Porgy entry that I don’t like backtracking; I like wandering around even less. So that was it. Too bad, because I think I would’ve liked to see it through.

30. Rock On! Island 🔗 🍒

Is it true that there’s nothing particularly original in this title? Yes. Is it also one of my favorite UFO 50 entries just because I’m a sucker for tower defense games? Also yes.

Getting gold was hard, especially the last level. After beating it, I told myself that that was enough, and forced myself to move on, but the next day I was back at it. I ended up getting the cherry (beating all levels without any damage) and, interestingly, it was easier than gilding it, for two reasons:

• The first time I hadn’t fully understood the game’s chickenomics, and how important they are to beat some levels with full lives.
• I also didn’t even know I could upgrade my weapon. I’m pretty sure you can’t have a perfect win in some levels without upgrading it.

There is an implementation detail here that I found interesting. Many tower defense games have a "race condition" problem: when two towers (or cavemen in this case) shoot at a target at the same time and the first hit kills it, the second projectile is wasted. As levels get harder, this behavior can affect your strategy, but it’s a shitty complication. In Rock On! Island you don’t have that problem: if tower A shoots at a target that’s going to be killed, tower B aims somewhere else.

This seems completely anachronistic for a game from the 80s, but I’m glad they did it that way. It shows that, when it matters, the UFO 50 devs prioritized enjoyment over realism.

31. Pingolf 🔗 🎁

The only game I played exclusively in two-player mode. I was showing UFO 50 to a friend and Pingolf was the next cartridge I had to dust off. It was fun. At some point one of us got a hole in one, so that gave me the gift. I didn’t play it alone after that.

32. Mortol II 🔗 🪙

I had such high hopes for the sequel to Mortol that it was inevitably disappointing. It’s a great game, but it’s not as good as Mortol and, more importantly, I’m not sure it’s a good sequel.

I’m going to make up a theory on the spot: there are three kinds of sequels, and each one can be represented by one of the three Super Mario Bros games released after the original one:

• The Japanese sequel is pretty much the same game with new levels. It feels like an extension rather than an actual new game.
• The international sequel is a completely different game. Yes, it’s a platformer, and it has the same characters, but it doesn’t have the essence of the original one3.
• And then we have the ideal sequel: Super Mario Bros 3. It’s a perfect balance between being faithful to the original while adding new things that work.

To me, Mortol II feels closest to the second type, meaning that much of what I loved about the original is not there. Incidentally, the Campanella sequels also belong to this category.

I was about to assert that there are no "Super Mario Bros 3"s in UFO 50, but then I realized that actually there is one: Pilot Quest. The problem is that the original (Planet Zoldath) is a shitty game, so it doesn’t really fit the idea of being a great sequel to a great game.

33. Fist Hell 🔗 🎁

I don’t like beat ’em ups a lot, so I’m genuinely curious if there is something original here that I didn’t notice. To me, Fist Hell felt like just another instance of the genre.

The gift requirement just says "Survive 9 waves in the gym", and I naively assumed there was going to be a gym at some point in the game. In retrospect, that was a dumb assumption. So I played the whole thing without finding any gym (and I couldn’t defeat the final boss, so I didn’t even get to gild it), googled it, and learned that you just need to go left when the game starts. Oh well. At least the practice was useful to survive the nine waves.

34. Overbold 🔗 🎁

This game has a lot of clever ideas:

• You can increase the difficulty of each wave as much as you want, which in turn increases the reward. It’s possible to leave them as they are, but the last round is impossible to beat if you do. At the same time, if you make it much harder you’ll lose and have to start over. This means making bets and managing risk: you don’t have to be overbold, but neither... underbold?
• The enemies that show up in each wave are random but known in advance, letting you choose your upgrades accordingly.
• There’s always one item on sale and one item which costs more than usual. This means you can’t have a fixed strategy. You need to improvise.

The execution, though, is not as good. It’s not bad; it’s just that the ideas are great, and the way they are implemented feels half-baked. This is one of those UFO 50 games where I can easily imagine a successful expanded version.

35. Campanella 2 🔗 🎁

There were things I liked about the first Campanella, even if I didn’t love it, but I can’t say the same about the sequel. I found it weird and frustrating. The platformer levels don’t make sense. I don’t know, I guess the Campanella saga is just not for me.

I looked up how to get the gift as quickly as possible and that was it.

36. Hyper Contender 🔗 🎁

While technically this one goes to the list of "games in a genre I don’t really like", I have fond memories of Hyper Contender because getting the gift was intense. The requirement is to win five matches in a draft battle; I was 4-4 and won the final match by a hair. It was fun.

The ring mechanics are great, but I’m not sure how innovative they are because I don’t know much about fighting games.

37. Valbrace 🔗 🎁

As with Waldorf’s Journey, my first reaction was "this is going to suck". And here too I’m glad I gave it a proper chance.

What I like about Valbrace is that it feels like a game distilled to its essence. You get the bare minimum to be able to explore, fight, level up and get items. The exception is its magic system, which seems like the most innovative element. I liked it a lot, and I found it cool (and modern?) that you can use any spell as long as you know the pattern, even if you haven’t found it yet.

I also loved its approach to using the map. To me, this strikes a neat balance between two extremes: games that let you "play in the minimap", where you spend a lot of time mechanically following an arrow that takes you wherever you need to go next; and not having a minimap at all, which is definitely more immersive but can get frustrating (looking at you, Expedition 33). A map you can use at any time but that has some friction and a small cost seems like a good middle ground.

38. Rakshasa 🔗 🎁

Interesting revival mechanics. Other than that, this was another "got the gift and moved on".

39. Star Waspir 🔗 🎁

I definitely don’t like space shooters, and this one adds the bullet hell element, which I like even less. I got the gift with a lot of effort and closed the game for good.

40. Grimstone 🔗 🎁

Something something grindstone, yes. But there’s a lot to like here:

• The shooting mechanics, obviously.
• The way you select your initial party.
• The western in hell setting, or whatever this is. It’s really cool.

That being said, I didn’t play it much after getting the gift, because I’m too old for grinding.

Many people use Grimstone as an example of the insane amount of effort put into UFO 50. The typical comment is something like "one of the 50 games is a 20-hour RPG!". I agree it’s impressive, but I’d also say that it actually feels undercooked. One example: if you pick Umbra as a member of your initial party, you’ll have a completely useless character until you find the first animal that gives you a skill. Maybe this was a conscious decision, but to me it felt like a lack of iteration.

41. Lords of Diskonia 🔗 🎁

Another one where I diverge from the community. I liked it a lot. I kept playing after getting the gift and I was sure I was going to get gold (and maybe aim for cherry too). But then I got to the last level and its AI suddenly reached the singularity: it went from "kind of dumb but challenging enough" to "killing three of my discs on each throw".

This is the only game that I’d like to see patched. I would love to give it another chance if the difficulty curve gets fixed.

42. Night Manor 🔗 🍒

Obviously great. What it lacks in interesting puzzles it makes up for with atmosphere and scenarios. The plot is predictable but still fun to see develop.

I got cherry, but I admit that I used a guide for the abstruse "X on the mirror" puzzle.

43. Elfazar’s Hat 🔗 🎁

By this point I think I was clearly in a "I want to get this over with" mood. I played it a bit trying to figure out what the gift requirement actually meant ("Earn a continue in the bonus round") until I got tired and looked it up. Then I managed to get to the bonus round a couple of times and lost. Since each attempt was very time-consuming, I googled again and found out that there was a terminal code you could use to go directly to the bonus round. I practiced with that and then got the gift. I’m not proud of any of this.

44. Pilot Quest 🔗 🎁

This was the last game I finished, for obvious reasons. Here I also used a terminal code, this time to practice fighting the spider (not proud).

I made a deliberate decision to stop playing after I got the gift, because I know how addictive cookie clickers can be and how little self-control I have.

45. Mini & Max 🔗 🎁

The main victim of my ill-advised decision to play UFO 50 the way I did.

I had heard about Mini & Max and was excited to play it. Getting the gift was easy and I kept playing after that, but... my heart wasn’t into it, so I stopped. Which is a pity. I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed it way more if I had tackled the collection in a more relaxed way.

46. Combatants 🔗 🎁

While I didn’t know that Party House was everyone’s favorite when I played it, by the time I got to Combatants I was fully aware that this was the most despised game in the collection. I can’t disagree. This was particularly frustrating to me because I’ve wanted to play a good ants game for literally decades (mainly because I loved Sim Ants when I was a kid, which is not a particularly good game, but I didn’t know better).

I don’t have much to add that hasn’t been said already. There’s definitely a good game here, and maybe it doesn’t need many changes to become one. At the same time... I think I don’t want to see it patched? I kind of like that there’s a game that sucks. It somehow adds depth to the collection.

47. Quibble Race 🔗 🪙

A fun filler I guess? I got gold without much effort and it was fun but confusing: I felt like I just pressed a bunch of buttons randomly, bet the house on the last round, and won. It was like getting drunk at a casino and figuring out hours later that you got a lot of money. Maybe that was the idea.

48. Seaside Drive 🔗 🎁

Bullet hell. Got the gift. Moved on.

49. Campanella 3 🔗 🎁

The most interesting thing about this game to me is the imaginary reaction of the LX fandom in this alternate universe. I can see the argument: "Yes, it’s fun, it’s well done, and it’s 3D! But is it a Campanella game? It has the title and the spaceship... is that enough? I don’t think it is."

I agree with you, imaginary 1980s neckbeard gamer.

It makes me wonder if this was intentional, showing a company that’s losing its soul and focusing on the wrong things (using new tech for its own sake, cannibalizing the success of existing titles, etc.)

50. Cyber Owls 🔗 🎁

Another one I would’ve enjoyed more if I hadn’t been rushing through the last row.

I guess this has been said a million times, but: it’s of course fitting that the last UFO 50 game is in itself a collection of games.

Wikipedia, that collaborative encyclopedia of spoilers, includes a 51st game on its UFO 50 page. I noticed that when I was in the middle of the playthrough and checked the article for some reason. I assumed this was a title that would be unlocked after beating the fifty games or something like that. The reality was way cooler.

To be honest, I didn’t explore the meta-game at all, I only watched a great video about it. But what a treat. At the time of writing, it’s even unclear if the community has unlocked all the game’s secrets (there’s a 100 PAGES DOCUMENT with all the information collected so far).

The existence of the meta-game makes something that’s already an undeniable achievement even more impressive. I’m in awe of the level of attention to detail needed to pull this off. It’s the kind of feat that requires more than talent and effort. You can only accomplish something like this if you really love what you are doing.

Final thoughts

So.

My first takeaway other than "this game is incredible" should be obvious by now: I made a really bad call when I decided to play the game the way I did, trying to get every garden gift. And it’s ironic, because I normally look down on completionism. But here I am.

On the other hand, I do think it’s useful to have some criteria to call a game like this done. The problem is that I didn’t explore it enough before committing to one.

If someone asked me today what is the best way to experience UFO 50, my advice would be:

• Start by playing each game a bit, and just keep playing the ones you immediately love.
• Then, after you’ve explored the whole collection this way, find a way to give a second (or third) chance to the ones you didn’t play that much. Most of them deserve it. At the same time, it’s fine to decide that one is not for you (I regret every extra minute I spent on Onion Delivery).

But enough with the "how". What about the game itself?

One way to think about this is to instead ask another question: would the games here be as good if they were released on their own? To me the answer for almost all of them is a clear no. This is not a bad thing, though! Presentation matters, and saying that things change if you remove the context is not very useful. At the same time, it’s fair to recognize that there aren’t that many games here that are great. But the collection is. It’s a fantastic idea and a terrific execution. That it somehow does manage to include a few games that are great only makes it more incredible.

Resources

• Reviewing Every Single UFO 50 Game. I enjoyed this review a lot. The author is a game dev and it shows in the attention they pay to the design of each game.
• The Incredible Game Design of UFO 50. Another good review, this one focused even more on the game design, with some very interesting insights.
• What dark secrets hide beneath the surface of UFO 50? A video exploring UFO 50’s hidden meta-game.

Footnotes

If you are wondering, as I did, whether it was historically accurate to have a mimic in a game from 1982, the answer is yes: they first appeared in a Dungeons & Dragons rulebook from 1977.↩ 1.

I’m under the sad obligation of clarifying that these em dashes were deliberately inserted by a human being (namely, me) and not an LLM.↩ 1.

Obviously. I suppose anyone reading this knows why there are two Super Mario Bros 2. If not, check the linked Wikipedia articles.↩