just pulled up the thread to post the same. Nest stuff yeah
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I definitely feel the early game in Pilot Quest is pretty weak at times, until you’re producing enough resources to have decently long visits in the wild zone (where most of the actual game is happening) it can be a slog given the relatively high expense to buy meat and upgrades. I’m actually having a similar problem in the endgame. I’m trying to get the cherry disk by beating Nozzo, but I feel like I need to have the maximum amount of meat to be able to have any chance of doing so, meaning in-between attempts I need to wait a considerable amount of time for the meat merchant to restock his meats. Not the biggest issue since time passes while in other games, but i just want to get the dang cherry and be done with the thing!
And yeah, Grimstone is a little disappointing for me as well. It’s a perfectly fine old school Final Fantasy like but the pacing is pretty wack, and it seems like the game wants you to grind a lot more than old RPGs actually do. It also kinda sucks that you can get stuck with a barely viable party (I have Maria, Pearl, Anne, and the dog) and I’m not retreading the 10ish hours of progress I have just to reroll my party. It’s fun but I find myself being drawn to other games instead.
Valbrace has really gotten its hooks into me. I’ve been wanting to play a solid dungeon crawling blobber type game for a while. I gave Shining the Holy Ark a shot but didn’t click with it, but Valbrace is hitting just right. The punch out style combat is a lot of fun, and the character progression is simple but satisfying. Good stuff!
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A strategy I’d heard but haven’t yet tried myself is to both max out on meat before going to hunt Nozzo, and also have a healthy amount of zoldnaks to buy energy from one of the merchants in the caves. There just doesn’t seem to be enough meat otherwise, unless you’ve hit NG+ a few times.
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That’s what I did. I bought 15 energy from a 2 zoldnak vendor to beat him. I tried once before with like 9 energy and died right at the end, was pretty infuriating.
Squeaker!
I liked it a lot, will Cherry later.
Nice to hear Frank C’s on to UFO50, seems laser-targeted to him.
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I figured it might be a fun time to bump the UFO 50 thread and see where people’s impressions are at with it now. There’s certainly enough game to chew on that our experiences may have changed since the last time this thread was active.
Not sure how many people are still actively playing it, but it’s still mostly been the game I’ve been deeply into lately.
I got really deep into Kick Club, Lords of Diskonia and Campanella 2 (which I think I currently like more than Spelunky 2…)
I’ve also been playing along with the Eggplant podcast, and they’re gearing up for their Mooncat episode. So it’s been really interesting to simultaneously play through it chronologically and intentionally with a group while also seeing where my whims take me.
A bunch of games have really grown on me as I’ve gotten more familiar with them including Magic Garden, Velgress and the Campanella trio to name a few.
I’m kind of amazed that a lot of my negative impressions of games wash away over time when I spend more time getting to know them. There’s a lot going on in this game. It’s really unbelievable.
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I’m still smokin the hell out of UFO 50!! I’ve decided I’m going to cherry all of the games in the collection in chronological order (though I had done a few out of order already) and I definitely think devoting extended periods to a single game instead of constantly hopping around is a great way to appreciate how well designed each and every one of these dang games is. Even though not all of them may be to everyone’s tastes, each one is wonderfully considered and deliberately made with so many layers of complexity emerging from relatively simple gameplay ideas. Pure game designers’ catnip, this game is.
Currently hooked on Magic Garden and MAN it would be so cool if this one had its own dedicated arcade cabinet with a pacman-like joystick I could absolutely demolish
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Last time I posted in the thread, I was still trying to like the game. I gave up on that eventually, uninstalled it, and don’t plan to look back for a while. I don’t really like the way it views old games or the ‘old game experience’ as something that was difficult and obtuse. I play actual old games all the time; they’re not all ‘nintendo hard’ and they have manuals! It picks and chooses when it wants to recreate that experience, and it always leans towards the miserable.
But really, at the end of the day, this is just a case of a game not being what I wish it was. What I actually wanted, I realized after thinking about this for a bit, was a massively expanded version of the Gamecenter CX games. I want fake gaming magazines, manuals, and games that are like old games but have some of the edges smoothed out (and have more bite-sized goals).
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I haven’t even dusted off half the collection in UFO 50, and I do plan to go back and play every single of these. I think hopping around at first is good, and playing more of the things that stick, but I also find that spending time with ones I didn’t click with right away is also rewarding, even if it doesn’t turn into one of my favorites.
Yeah I feel this. The “early,” more arcade-y games (that I’ve played at least), which are ostensibly satisfying to play in short bursts, have these larger goals (and only those larger goals) that will require me to only grind that game for a little while, honing my skill at it, memorizing the level, perfecting the strategy, etc… Maybe that’s a “me” problem for caring about the gold condition, but it does sort of irk me. Even still, I enjoy hopping on to play a round or two of Magic Garden every once in a while. If I had a steam deck, or this was on switch, that kind of play would happen way more often.
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I did a little sampling of the vast majority of the games, but the only thing that kind of kept me going was the secret game. It gets you kind of a broad sampling which was nice but I didn’t love anything enough to grind it super hard.
I still had a great time. Echoing it should’ve been on switch tho.
my wife and I played a shitload of 2 player Avianos and Rail Heist after we were done with the single player experience. Avianos makes me long for more local multiplayer lightweight 4x games built from the ground up for gamepad instead of mouse… there are so very few of those. Rail Heist makes me long for more Worms-style turn based/realtime hybrids that aren’t just Worms. imagine The Outfoxies but it plays like Worms and that would be a dream party game 2 me.
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I searched far and wide for a game to scratch the Avianos itch. Apparently Root is the closest equivalent but haven’t played it yet (and am open to other suggestions if you have them)
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I have been playing UFO 50 a lot. I’ve clocked in 120 hours since launch, and like @thumpus I am aiming to cherry every game in chronological order. The only exception being, I have semi-regular hangout sessions with friends and any games I have earmarked to play with them - I skip over in the order/play early.
So far, I have 21 cherries. On disks 1-21 (except Mooncat which is currently gold - playing with a friend) and then I played through Night Manor with my partner.
My experience has been very positive overall. It does feel kinda bonkers to attempt to “complete” every game in this collection, but I have thus far found it a worthwhile and fulfilling experience. I don’t know if a game or two will crop up that makes the goal unattainable either through tedium or sheer difficulty, but if so I think that’s fine too. If I hadn’t taken this approach, I don’t think I would be so impressed with this collection. Frankly, almost every game I have tried so far left me with a bad first impression. Usually either: this is impossible or I don’t get it. If I had sampled each one, a handful would have jumped out as games that clicked and I would have played those and written off the rest.
Persevering with each game in most cases has led me to a good time, by developing a better understanding of the game, or the required technical skill or just sinking into its general rhythm. The experience of meeting a game on its own terms and learning to enjoy it is something I think I have lost a bit as I’ve gotten older and less patient, and playing UFO 50 this way is teaching me how to do that all over again… like when I got one new game as a kid and I had no real choice but to play it until I found some fun in there.
I actually think this experience in UFO 50 is quite neatly condensed, as the more difficult games tend to be fairly short - seeing through to the end of most games is far more reasonable than it initially appears. YMMV of course. For every game I’ve looked into, I can find people saying they cherried it on their first attempted and others saying they can’t crack it after hours of trying. it seems my average cherry time is around 5 hours, with the more challenging ones around 10 hours.
I’ve been rating each game individually on Backloggd as I play through them, so I made a list here that shows my rating on each game. It’s really too much to go into and I’ve already rambled a lot - but if anyone has queries about any of the games I’ve played so far I’m happy to answer them!
I’ll highlight my two 5-star games here, Barbuta and Mortol. A major commonality with both is that I played them with friends.
Mortol is such a blast in co-op, hatching out little plans and ideas together then taking it in turns to execute your various roles as things inevitably descend into chaos. There’s lots of room for pulling off miraculous runs, or accidentally discovering some hidden mechanic that totally changes your approach to the game. Going back through the levels with your new found mastery is super satisfying and by the end we were working together like a well-oiled machine.
Barbuta is of course a singleplayer game, but I immediately thought of another friend of mine after 30 minutes or so with this game and decided it would be best played collaboratively. This was an excellent decision, and just yesterday we wrapped up the game uncovering seemingly every secret, solving every puzzle and achieving the cherry clear condition without an iota of outside help - I seriously doubt I would have managed this alone, as it required a bunch of out of the box thinking and tackling problems like this with just two people is exponentially more effective than doing it solo.
We went all in on this, even decided to draw out a full world map which proved instrumental in solving a couple of the puzzles. We each both had sudden flashes of inspiration that panned out, and when we’d take a break to eat or whatever we’d bounce ideas back and forth then eagerly rush back to try them. We had at least 5 or 6 incredibly satisfying revelations, each one unlocking new options and paths to explore. It was such a rush to finally find a way into an elusive area, or spot something new in a room you’d visited a dozen times before. Beating the final challenge felt amazing, and was absolutely one of the best things I’ve done all year in games. It’s crazy to me that I would be speaking this way about Barbuta based on my initial impressions of the game, but there it is. I would hear or read about people saying Barbuta was a top game for them I’m like “Ah fair enough, people like different stuff but this is not my cup of tea” and yet here we are.
If you're curious, here's the map we drew...(spoilers of course, although you'd have to work quite hard and already be familiar to actually be spoiled by this lol)
I can absolutely recommend this collaborative experience if you have someone in mind who might enjoy getting involved in something like that.
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the goty talk and such has got me playing ufo 50 again. i’m having a wonderful and frustrating time because once i again i find myself too stupid for the games i like most. why can’t i beat rock on! island?
anyway, cool interview with the devs here: Eggplant: The Secret Lives of Games: EP: A Year of UFO 50 - SPECIAL - Developer Interview
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I had a similar reaction. But the most noticeable thing to me is how the attention to detail is completely backwards for the supposed time period of the games.
Real games from the era would have 3 page backstories explaining how the protagonist is the illegitimately deposed cybershah of Neo-Khwarizmia VI on epic quest to reclaim his throne for justice, and have incredibly detailed box-art by a famous artist. But the game itself would be 6 rectangles and a noise generator.
UFO 50 games from the same era have relatively detailed graphics and sophisticated mechanics. But the description of the game is like “Grab the diamonds! Do it for good! Don’t hit a failure trap!”
I generally found UFO 50 to be decent. But something about it often rang false to me, and it’s probably mostly the above.
I also didn’t find the Nintendo Hard thing to be universally true. But it was pretty common in all the games that were retro takes on modern mechanics.
I didn’t find “Nintendo” to be well represented at all in fact. Everything seemed much more towards Japanese PCs (MSX et al), “European” computers (C64/Spectrum/Amstrad/etc.), or contemporary arcade games.
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I think UFO 50 attempts more to replicate the experience of digging through a collection of ROMs than trying the Retro Game Challenge style of replicating the entire presentation of the games. As someone who was first introduced to games from the era it’s representing using emulators, that’s kind of something that I’m personally always searching for ways to replicate (hence my periodic months-long obsessions with something like the P/ECE or Palm OS games), so for me it was great.
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i read the last few posts in this thread after coming back to the game for a couple days and realized that yeah this game is actually about something! and that’s wild and cool to me
like I can appreciate the line of criticism and I’ve seen variations on it elsewhere but I can’t help but feel like it’s a little dismissive? that UFO50’s premise isnt totally rigorous in its evocation of nostalgia doesn’t undermine what the whole project is actually about (creative process, art as anthropology) or what it’s trying to say (small productions can be special in a way big productions cannot be.) it gives me fuzzy feelings to think abt the fictional employees of UFOSoft spending late nights trying to make cool fun stuf and growing as designers and artists
i’ve heard some people say that they feel UFO50 is like a gentrification/commericalization of the game jam without bearing in mind that it was put together by many of the very people who arguably popularized the practice in the first place
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i appreciate the criticism @UncreativeOutput and @Mnemogenic have toward UFO 50’s treatment of “games of the past” but fwiw i got the vibe from this interview that they developed the games first and only retroactively or secondarily considered placing them in a chronology or aesthetics of a certain era.
this is helpful for me to keep in mind at least for the more frustrating or obtuse games in the collection. it makes it easier for me to engage with something in good faith when i know its created to be enjoyed as it is rather than as a curio or something.
but of course intent does not equal execution etc etc
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Yeah. I kind of wish they leaned more into the alien arcade from another dimension sort of vibe. It sounds like they were really inspired by retro games they didn’t play and imagined what they may be like. I love the idea that they were able to take more creative risks and follow their weird bliss because they knew each individual game didn’t have to hold the pressure of being sold individually.
It’s unfortunate that many of the developers have a bias towards unpleasantly difficult and obtuse entry points because it creates a bad first impression on what the game is trying to communicate, especially when combined with the trophy/cherry system. The devs have said that the cherries were designed as another layer for people who are really, really into a particular game and not as a completionist challenge.
There is a wonderful feeling that happens in some of these games long-term where the experience morphs from totally indecipherable insta-death to a cool, chill time. But I think it leans way too hard in that direction as a whole.
I think the meta-game of thinking way too deeply about UFO 50 and game development is more fun what they did with the terminal lol.
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It’s interesting to hear people say these games are too mechanically dense or too obtuse or not NES enough when most of these games seem extremely specific and time appropriate to me. Star Waspir feels exactly like an 80s Compile console shmup. Cyber Owls is an incredible riff on Rare’s NES output. Barbuta almost feels too close to Faxanadu. etc
There’s a couple on here that do feel anachronistic, Party House for sure, but they’re pretty few and far between vs the amount of games that are just mashing up two specific NES games that came out in the year the game supposedly came out in.
And as far as the manual stuff goes, I think @donrumata hit the nail on the head: this feels like its going for the feeling of say playing the Genesis Collection on the Gamecube rather than the feeling of having a Genesis, and I think it nails it.
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