UFO 50 is a difficult game to even explain succinctly, let alone try to review. As the title suggests, it is a collection of 50 individual games, all made in a plausibly 8-bit style befitting the work of a game company in the 1980’s. And while these titles do vary widely in size and amount of content on offer, they are full games: not mini-games, not Warioware-esque microgames. These are 50 complete games, each with its own title screen and credits. And that’s where the UFO 50’s overarching metanarrative comes in.

You see, the premise of UFO 50 is that there was a video game developer in the 80’s called “UFOsoft”, and this package contains every game the (fictional) company ever made. Each game in the collection has a specific release date—spanning from August 1982 to July 1989—and this, along with some tidbit of information about its development, is accessible from its metadata on the menu screen.

The default way the games are sorted in the menu is chronologically, using each game’s (fictional) release date.

By observing each game’s credits, and little details provided in their metadata, you get an idea of the people who created these games. And if you're paying attention, you’ll notice the staff of this video game company change over time. There’s a pretty rich history to be discovered here—fictional, as it may be—and a surprisingly compelling metanarrative about creative work, company growth, corporate interference, and the like.

But more on that later…

Jumping into UFO 50 feels akin to finding a random collection of roms online, or picking up a famiclone device, and just diving into a grabbag of NES games, bootlegs, and romhacks. While it captures the mystery and intrigue found by digging through random software of dubious origins, the actual experiences on offer here tend to be much more thoughtfully designed and a lot more satisfying. There’s a lot of variety to the various game types contained in the collection, and yet the level of quality across the board is quite staggeringly high.

Which is not to say that you will definitely love every game in UFO 50. With 50 different games of various genres, it stands to reason that not every game will be for every player. Some of them won’t win you over right off the bat, and some of them will likely never win you over. Still, in my personal opinion, what’s good here is really good—like mindblowingly good. Pound for pound, I don’t think you’ll find a better video game out there today, especially not for a mere 25 bucks.

UFO 50 comes to us from Spelunky developer Mossmouth, so of course my expectations for it were astronomically high. The dev team of Derek Yu, Jon Perry, Eirik Suhrke, Paul Hubans, Ojiro Fumoto, and Tyriq Plummer worked for eight years to produce this 50-game collection. For the sake of the game’s historical fiction, these real-life developers are presented as the “UFO Recovery Team”. The idea being that a long forgotten “LX-III” console was discovered in a storage locker and these six guys were simply the ones who retrieved the data contained within. It’s a fun concept. And considering the large cast of fictional programmers, designers, and producers credited for creating these games, you often won’t know which real-life developers contributed what to each title.

One aspect of UFO 50 that I really appreciate—but I’m sure will rub some players the wrong way—is its lack of tutorialization. Most games in the collection don’t tell you how to play, beyond a simple explanation of the Controls in the game’s metadata. And the devs (the real ones, I mean) don’t shy away from friction in their designs. They allow the player to sit with each game, to struggle with the mechanics, to get annoyed by the occasional rough edges left in for authenticity. Much like with Spelunky, these games can be quite punishing by design.

There’s a depth to UFO 50 that rewards players for putting time into it, for engaging with each individual game just a little more deeply. In fact, the collection has multiple win states you can achieve for each game. I think about it like this:

Gold is the reward for clearing a game, i.e. making it to the end credits. Once you’ve done this, that game’s disk icon on the menu screen will turn a shiny gold color. Beyond Gold is the Cherry, the reward for fully completing a game, and this changes a game’s disk icon to a bright red color. In some cases the Cherry condition might be achieving a crazy high score, clearing the game under a super short time limit, or meeting some other extra challenging criteria. Naturally getting the Gold can be difficult already, but getting the Cherry requires even more effort and dedication.

In the case of Night Manor, for example, the game can be cleared without actually seeing all rooms in the house or collecting all items. Your character can make an early escape, which results in the credits rolling, although you do receive the “bad ending”. Clearing the game in this way gets you the Gold. However, if you find all the objects in the game and take all steps required to reach the game’s “good ending”, then you get the Cherry. Or with Bushido Ball, simply playing all the way through a fighting game-style arcade mode gets you the Gold. But to get the Cherry, you need to beat the game without using any continues, meaning you never lose a match.

And then there are the Garden Gifts. Each game in UFO 50 has an in-game item which can be collected (similar to getting Gold or Cherry), and once collected, the item will appear in the main menu under the “Garden” filter. The criteria for getting each Garden Gift is different, but it’s generally a reward for making it about halfway through a game. Sometimes it’s granted for performing a specific in-game action. In any case, these details can be found in the game’s metadata.

While we’re on this topic, I have to say that the Garden in UFO 50 is pretty weird in and of itself. The Garden is a 2D pixel art scene of a house and yard with a picket fence, and it kind of acts like a little hub world in the main menu. This house is home to a little pig-like character known as “Little Buddy”, who wanders around the house and yard, just living his life, kind of like a Tamagochi. Each time a Garden Gift is collected, it gets added to this cozy house scene and becomes part of Little Buddy’s daily life. Gifts include normal indoor decor like a rug, couch, and TV, as well as mundane outdoor items like a veggie patch, watering can, and anthill. Some of the gifts are more wacky and/or extraordinary, but I’ll let you discover those for yourself.

Strange as the Garden is, it does fit with the quirky vibes of UFO 50, as the collection has an extremely cohesive look and feel. It’s particularly refreshing to see themes and aesthetics here that are not only fun and original, but also pretty offbeat and weird. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the UFO 50 soundtrack is beyond incredible. This game contains over 300 music tracks, all made by Eirik Suhrke, and the man has absolutely killed it. The main menu music alone gets stuck in my head for days.

Despite there being a variety of games and genres to play, the collection does include a few sequels and several characters reappear from game to game. Most notable among them is Pilot and his spaceship, the Campanella. Pilot made his first playable appearance in Spelunky 2, but here he serves as UFOsoft’s mascot. Pilot’s sister Isabell is also a major character, sort of like the Luigi to Nintendo’s Mario. (Which is to say, she’s a sibling of main character, but is actually much cooler than he is.) You also have Alpha, the space bounty hunter who stars in Velgress and Overbold. But if I name all of the recurring characters we’ll be here all day.

Pilot Quest - Isabell teases Pilot about crashing his spaceship yet again.

Well right, so I should probably talk about the actual games. The thing is, there’s way too much ground to cover, so I’m only going to hastily discuss a few titles…

Before I do that though, here’s a recommendation. Over the past year I’ve been listening to the Eggplant podcast discuss every UFO 50 game in order, going week-by-week in a sort of bookclub style format. Honestly, it’s been a truly incredible way to experience and appreciate the collection, so I highly recommend listening to Eggplant Presents: A Year of UFO 50. Ok, on to the games!

First and foremost, you absolutely need to play Mini & Max. A superb 2D platforming adventure with a shrinking mechanic that will genuinely blow your mind, Mini & Max tells an imaginative story in a world-traversing adventure that’s literally contained within a storage closet. The childhood fantasy of shrinking down really small is realized here to great effect, and the expansive (miniature) world is so fully fleshed out, it feels alive. There are so many NPCs with their own stories and/or Mini-quests to be completed, and it seems like every detail the game hints at gets paid off at some point. Honestly, I think this might be one of the greatest adventure games ever made. Genuinely amazing!

My next recommendation is Pilot Quest. It’s an unusual concept: part idle game nonsense (think time-wasters like Cookie Clicker and Universal Paperclips), part top-down action adventure (straight-up The Legend of Zelda). Pilot Quest has you collecting resources in the Idle game section to enable further exploration in the Adventure game section. Specifically you collect Meat, which translates to more seconds on a timer that decreases while you explore “the Wild”. This design feels extremely punishing at first, and while it really shouldn’t work, the game is actually quite fun. For its idle game elements, the clock in Pilot Quest will continue to run while the game is closed—like while you are playing other UFO 50 games or just on the main menu—so you’re able to build up resources while doing other things. In this way, the game very much encourages you to dip a toe in and come back later at your leisure. Shockingly good stuff.

Mortol is a side-scrolling platformer game that really straddles the line between action and puzzle platforming. The way it uses extra lives is extremely unique and rather thought-provoking in an existential sense. Every “life” you have is an individual Mortolian citizen and they are being sacrificed for the game’s overarching cause. When your character in Mortol dies, his body remains in the level and might help the next person progress. Additionally, each citizen can perform a “ritual” which—while fatal to the person performing them—can come in handy for overcoming obstacles. These rituals include 1) turning one’s body into an arrow that flies horizontally across the screen and lodges into walls, 2) turning one’s body into a stone block, or 3) exploding one’s body like a bomb. With its slapstick cartoon violence and tongue-in-cheek thematic elements of ritual sacrifice, Mortol is a bit risque, but truly a brilliant game that needs to be played.

Sunset Drive looks like it’s going to be an Outrun style racing game, but it’s not that at all. Instead it’s an incredible neon-drenched arcade shooter where you control a sports car armed with blasters, and breaking/drifting powers your weapons. While most games in UFO 50 might take some time to get acquainted with and fully appreciate, Sunset Drive is instant satisfaction. This one is all killer, no filler; just immediately fun from the jump! The multiplayer mode is also inspired, with Player 1 doing the driving and Player 2 handling the shooting, sort of like a sidescrolling Lucky & Wild.

Rail Heist is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer stealth game about robbing trains in the Old West. Gameplay here leads far more into strategy or puzzle mechanics than action, and the controls are not as tight or intuitive as I would’ve liked. But each stage is super interesting and I’ve really enjoyed every heist I’ve been able to pull off. While I haven’t tried it out the multiplayer yet, I’d hazard to bet it’s actually even more fun.

Velgress is a vertical-scrolling arcade action platformer that’s like Downwell, but in reverse. You have to climb out of a pit by (double) jumping on platforms to ascend one floor at a time. A deadly spiked cylinder follows you up from the bottom of the screen, creating a pointy floor of doom. If you trip up and fall at any point, it’s game over. Interestingly, the screen only scrolls up—and the spiky death floor follows—when you jump, meaning that you actually control the tempo of the climb. But since all platforms quickly break under your feet, you’re not really able to rest at any point. In classic Derek Yu style, the consequence of failure is returning to the very beginning. So despite its fast pace and quick restarts, this is one game I’m confident I will never complete.

Do you enjoy 8-bit adventures where it turns out it was all a dream (such as Super Mario Bros. 2 or Link’s Awakening)? If so, Waldorf’s Journey is for you. This is a side-scrolling 2D platformer where you guide a walrus left to right. But instead of momentum-based running and jumping mechanics, Waldorf’s movement plays more like a golfing game. You aim which direction to go (with 180 degrees to work with), charge your jump, and then Waldorf will launch himself in that direction. The aesthetics of the game are quite surreal and dreamlike, and overall it’s just a really charming game. Also, Waldorf’s Journey features a 2-player Battle Mode that is absolute crazy walrus-jumping chaos. Extremely fun to play with a seven-year-old over and over.

Vainger is a Metroid game with movement built around a gravity-flipping mechanic. Normally you would classify a game like this as a metroidvania, but there’s no need to mention -vania here because Vainger is fully Metroid. You’re a scientist in a mechanized suit exploring an interconnected alien world. (…Or is it a space station? It doesn’t matter.) Beyond the gravity flipping, this game has an interesting upgrade system where you can augment three different parts of your powersuit—Gun, Body, and Grav elements—which translates to upgrading your shot (Gun), defense (Body), or adding gravity-flip effects (Grav). The aesthetics in Vainger are just pitch-perfect, and the music in this one especially slaps.

Night Manor - Hey, that looks like my first car.

Night Manor is an old school point-and-click adventure with a horror theme. Probably the most “mature” game in the collection, it is genuinely scary and with a story that’s quite creepy. While point-and-click adventure games are not my thing, I was surprised to find myself really enjoying Night Manor. In fact, I got Gold on this game the first time playing it, and then got the Cherry the second time I booted it up. With its creepy house setting, body horror elements, and Texas Chainsaw Massassce-eque slasher antagonist, this won’t be a game for everybody. But it genuinely won me over.

Warptank is an action puzzle platformer where you play as a tank which rolls along any surface (be it the floor, ceiling, or walls) and is able to fire its cannon straight upward. As the title suggests, the tank can also warp to a spot directly opposite its current position, i.e.; from the floor to the ceiling, or from the wall on the left side to the wall on the right. Visually the game looks like Blaster Master (at least that game’s tank sections), but the gameplay is far more focused on—and limited by—the unique warping mechanic. This one is super cool, both in concept and in execution.

Party House is a push-your-luck style deck builder game with a party planning theme. When I first tried to play this one I bounced off it pretty hard, as I didn’t quite get it, and strategy games are definitely not my forte. However, all of the games in UFO 50, this one seemed to garner universal acclaim online, so I knew I’d need to give it another try. And honestly, it is extremely charming and approachable. The insane amount of character in this game—both speaking literally and aesthetically—is delightful. The wild cast of this game is a great draw, and clearly the numbers have been truly fine-tuned behind the scenes. While I’m still terrible at strategizing, even I can enjoy playing through a round or two of Party House. It’s a real crowd pleaser.

Alright…I’m going to stop there with discussing individual games because UFO 50 is just too big. If I don’t stop I’ll PLAY FOREVER. Now I could go on a rant about how there’s a surprising amount of golf in UFO 50, both in clearly golf-themed games and also just general golf mechanics…but I genuinely don’t care enough about golf to do that.

Instead, I just wanted to reiterate that a key design element found in almost every single game in UFO 50 is an embrace of friction. The devs (the real ones) have very confidently executed on their vision for this collection, and seemingly stuck to their guns in terms of challenging gameplay. While they’ve tried to utilize modern design sensibilities where applicable, they haven’t watered anything down, added unnecessary tutorials, or otherwise softened the experience to draw in novice players. They simply made what they wanted to make, and put it out there for people to experience.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I love UFO 50. Based on the developers involved, the retro 8-bit aesthetic, and the general premise of preserving video history, I was predisposed to enjoy this collection. In fact, in some ways, the game feels almost custom-made to appeal to me personally. But generic as I may be, I hope this game doesn’t get limited to my own particular demographic. I hope players of all ages, from all backgrounds, with all manner of personal tastes, will give UFO 50 a try. It really is a monumental achievement of video game design.

And very much like with Celeste, I find this game to be really inspiring. Honestly, it makes me want to get out there and create my own games. Hopefully UFO 50 can light the creative fire for lots of people, helping more of us make the leap from passive consumer to active creator. Because if you ask me, the world needs more art, more uniquely human expression. We need to be more like Thorson Petter, more like Benedikt Chun, and definitely more like Gerry Smolski.

Oh…Are you still there? Great, because there’s more.

As if there wasn’t already too much game to engage with here, UFO 50 also has its own Terminal accessible from the main menu and pause screen. The Terminal accepts 8-character alphanumeric codes and can be used to access alternate game modes. This feels very similar to the Game Genie from my console gaming childhood, and is maybe even closer to the kind of tricks you could perform on early home computers, like the Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum. But most importantly, the Terminal is how you are able to discover UFO 50's biggest secret…

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Turns out, there is a cryptic scavenger hunt running throughout the collection which leads to a hidden 51st game! The secret game, called Miasma Tower, is a topdown RPG set in the UFOsoft offices during the company’s final days. Instead of some kind of celebratory affair, this final secret game is surprisingly creepy, and feels laden with its creator’s guilt and shame.

While the story unfolds slowly, you come to learn that you’re playing as Gregory Milk, the lead designer of Night Manor. Poor Greg has been tasked with putting together a compilation of all UFOsoft games and, while putting together the package that would become UFO 50, it seems he also slipped in this dark adventure game about the company itself.

Since Greg is making this game by himself in secret, he wouldn’t have help from any of the sound designers, and he’d probably have to work with whatever music he had access to. So it makes sense that all the music in this game comes from other UFO 50 games, except it’s been sped up or down, repitched a bit, or otherwise distorted to make it sound original. (And much like UFO 50 itself, Miasma Tower has its own soundtrack available on bandcamp.)

EXEC-MIAS, HIDE-HOLE, SOAP-STOP, 0229-1988, ????-????

Now one could maybe argue that Miasma Tower is less a true video game than a playable parable. It certainly delivers a lot more context to the UFOsoft metanarrative and even presents a murder mystery?! But whether you consider it to be a real game or not, it is certainly “a Gregory Milk experience”.

Ironically, as a secret 51st game, Miasma Tower kind of feels like the glue that holds UFO 50 together as one solitary work. This creepypasta RPG, along with the scavenger hunt that proceeded it, form the cohesive texture of the collection’s unique video game experience. So I hope most everybody will take a diversion off the beaten path to see it for themselves.

EXEC-MIAS, HIDE-HOLE, SOAP-STOP, 0229-1988, ????-????