When you open UFO 50, you’ll quickly be taken to a grid menu containing 50 pixel art thumbnails for 50 8-bit games. It’s demanding to know where to start: should I start with the first one? Should I choose randomly? Since the default order in the list is chronological, should I play the last one because it may represent the innovative peak of the fictional studio UFOSoft?
Ultimately it doesn’t matter because there’s a lot of it. I’ve been engrossed in the point-and-click horror game Night Manor for the last few days, but when I first booted up the game, I got hooked on Barbuta and Bushido Ball and neglected the other 48 games for a few days. I also went through the Walfor’s Journey phase and completed several levels in Camouflage and Block Koala. I definitely haven’t finished any of the games.
No one should feel bad or snail-paced because they haven’t completed any UFO 50 games yet, as during a recent conversation with the Mossmouth team I learned that no one on the team has completed all the games either. And they succeeded.
“No, not at all,” Eirik Suhrke replied when I asked if he (or anyone else) had completed all the games. “It’s too much. We’ve all similarly played a little bit of all of them, but yes, I watch stuff on Twitch and see new things all the time. No one has the full picture.”
Paul Hubans of UFO 50, for example, said he didn’t even play past the first level of Campanella 3, even though he spent “hundreds of hours” testing the collection in addition to being a designer.
“You have to focus on one level (game) at a time,” Suhrke continued. “To make any progress, you just have to turn off 49 other games for a while. Whenever I thought about it all I got dizzy and overwhelmed so I had to go for a walk and then I just try to block out as much as I can. Only now I see how the full power of it all comes together.
Tyriq Plummer says the way early players are reacting to the game – their surprise at the scale – is close to how he felt when he saw everything finally come together. “It’s one of those things where even though it’s such a large and multi-disciplinary project, it still feels like it’s more than the sum of its parts,” he said. “It’s something I had a hard time understanding when I was working on it. But now everyone says there’s a lot more to it than I realized. That’s super cool.”
Derek Yu agrees. “I think it’s always the best when you’re surprised by the game you’re working on, and I think that’s part of why it’s been so much fun working on it over the years. We are constantly sharing information and surprising everyone else.”
According to our review, the UFO 50 is a “gorgeous retro smorgasbord.” I spoke to most of the Mossmouth team in detail earlier this week, and you can read all about it here.