#oneaday Day 113: Missing the point of UFO 50

Since UFO 50’s release, I’ve had a few Thoughts. Firstly, UFO 50 is one of the most noteworthy interactive creative projects ever put together. Secondly, there are a lot of (obviously) young people who really Do Not Get It and, in that inimitably entitled way 21st century gamers do, they think it should change entirely to accommodate how they think it “should” be.

Aside: I’m covering UFO 50 both on MoeGamer and on YouTube. Check out here for the written articles, and here for the video versions of the articles. You can also enjoy the whole playlist embedded below.

A significant portion of the “unrest”, if you want to call it that, comes from Barbuta being the first game in the collection. Barbuta is, as you’ll know if you’ve read or watched my piece on it, a game that is ostensibly from 1982, and which follows the mould of the “arcade adventure”, a genre of game that doesn’t really exist any more, but which was a major part of the ’80s home computer scene.

In the “lore” of UFO 50, which, if you’re unfamiliar, concerns a completely fictional games console known as the LX System, Barbuta was the first game to be developed — and by an individual who had never made a game before, no less. Consequently, it’s janky, slow and unrefined — deliberately so. The nature of how it is janky, slow and unrefined makes it very clear that Derek Yu and the various other developers who put UFO 50 together are intimately familiar with ’80s home computer games — but it also sets expectations for the rest of UFO 50 accordingly.

One of the most significant things about UFO 50 is that it is, in part, a demonstration of how game design can be inherently intuitive. None of the games feature full instructions beyond their basic controls and sometimes a little bit of in-game information text, and yet they’re all designed in such a way that you can figure things out without too much difficulty. In Barbuta’s case, the main challenge comes from determining what all the items you can collect actually do — because the game certainly doesn’t tell you.

But here’s the key thing: it all makes sense. It’s easy to determine what all the items do, either by logical deduction or simply observing what happens on-screen. And this is true not just for Barbuta, but also for pretty much all of the other games in the collection, too. You just have to use your brain a bit.

This isn’t enough for some “gamers” though. There’s a guy on UFO 50’s Steam forums spamming pretty much every thread he can find about how he believes the games are a “joke”, that it’s “not funny” and that the package as a whole is a “scam”. There are others complaining about Barbuta as if it’s the only game in the collection, refusing to even contemplate trying any of the other 49 that are available. And there are those who simply do not get it.

UFO 50 is a work of art with something to say. It’s an acknowledgement both of how rapidly game design evolved over the course of the 1980s, and how modern ideas can be applied to these classic formulae to give them a fresh new twist. Demanding that it change to better fit the needs of attention-deficit zoomers is entirely missing the point. These are games that are supposed to be tricky and perhaps not immediately clear, because that’s what games from the ’80s were actually like — but dig into things just a little deeper and you’ll discover that every single game is inherently fair in a way that only 40 years of evolving game design can manage.

What you have to remember is that when real ’80s games came out, they had nothing to refer to on how to do it “right” — and some of them got things what we could consider “wrong” by modern standards. What UFO 50 does is take the conventions of these ’80s games, eliminate the things that just flat-out don’t work, and gives you a collection of titles that feel authentically retro, but also completely fair and modern in their execution. There’s no moon logic, no inconsistent behaviour, no technical shortcomings making things harder through no fault of the player.

In short, it’s a work of genius. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised that some people don’t get it. Perhaps I shouldn’t be frustrated that there are people who want to deface it with mods. Perhaps I should just enjoy it myself, and screw the people who don’t understand.

Yes. That sounds like a good approach. I’ll keep doing that. Please enjoy my series of articles and videos on each and every game!

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

#oneaday Day 105: Time to sleep

I barely slept last night. I’m not sure what the problem was, but I’m pretty sure I woke up at least once every hour in varying forms of discomfort, and consequently I’ve been rather tired today. Still, I made it through the day — and without sneaking off for a lunchtime nap, even — so now I feel justified in collapsing, ready for the weekend.

I’m still hoping to try doing a stream tomorrow, likely around lunchtime or early afternoon my time (UK time). I’m not going to make a huge effort to publicise it because I’ll be using the session in part to make sure I’ve got everything figured out and set up properly, but if you do fancy stopping by and saying hello, my Twitch channel is right here.

UFO 50 still feels like a prime choice to stream. It’s current, it’s timely and it’s thoroughly interesting. I’m only three games into it so far — I spent a hefty amount of time playing the second one this evening, and took a brief glimpse at the third one — but there’s a hell of a lot to explore, and each game is substantial in its own distinctive way. The first game, Barbuta, which I wrote about here and made a video you can see below, was a solid arcade adventure affair in the mould of classic home computers; the next two are completely different.

As the existence of the above article and video implies, I’m going to do a full series on all the games in UFO 50, because it deserves that much, and I suspect there aren’t going to be many other folks who explore it in that much detail. I’ve already seen a ton of ten-minute reviews go up on YouTube, and there is no way that they go into any sort of depth other than “retro game go brrr” so soon after release.

Sure, some folks probably just want a simple “is it worth buying?” but there’s definitely scope here for some in-depth analysis. So that’s what I’m going to do. On my own time. Because I like making work for myself.

Anyway, the second game is an interesting blend of strategy game and deckbuilder, then the third is an arcade-style autoscrolling platformer. Both of these are going to be a lot tougher to beat than Barbuta was, I can tell — those little gold trophies you get for beating all the games in the collection (and the cherries you get for beating them in extra special super pro ways) aren’t going to come easy, it seems!

And that’s good. I’m sure it must have been tempting for the team behind UFO 50 to make all the achievements and unlockables relatively straightforward, so everyone has a chance to see everything the game has to offer. But that’s not how real retro games worked; real retro games were tough, because you often only had one or two of them, particularly if you were a console rather than a home computer player, and thus they needed to last you a while.

I’m not going to be too upset if I don’t get all 50 shiny gold trophies and juicy cherries in UFO 50; I’ll be satisfied if I’ve simply figured out how each game works and what you’re supposed to do in it. Because that’s the first real challenge in the package; determining what real games each title is a bit like — with their own unique twists — and getting to grips with their mechanics and structure.

I’m looking forward to playing some more, but for now, I think I need to go to bed and hopefully sleep a bit better than last night! Perhaps see you tomorrow for the stream?

#oneaday Day 104: A Plan

I think I might have a very good idea on what to do for a stream on Saturday. UFO 50 by Mossmouth (Derek Yu’s software house, best known for Spelunky) came out recently, and hoo-whee, is it ever a good time.

Let me correct myself: I have spent approximately five hours this evening playing one of the 50 games in UFO 50. The first one. I have an idea brewing for a video and/or article series covering each and every game in the mix, so I’ll save the specifics for when I kick that off, but suffice it to say for now that when they say this isn’t a collection of microgames or minigames, they really mean it.

Let’s back up a moment for those unfamiliar with UFO 50. It’s a project that has been on the cards for quite some time — and was delayed by the development and release of Spelunky 2 — but now it’s finally hit Steam. (Other platforms are apparently “TBC”, so it’s Steam or nothing for now.)

The concept behind it is that a hitherto-unknown game system from the ’80s has been discovered, and you’re taking a look at its library. Laid out in front of you are 50 disks for the system, each containing a game. It’s your job to play them, as much or as little as you want.

Each of the games is designed in part as if it was running on technology of the ’80s. That means low resolution pixel art, limited sound capabilities and a palette consisting of a whopping 32 possible colours. However, as a nod to modern accessibility, all of these games run in widescreen, which is something that wouldn’t have been possible on the CRTs of yore, and annoying limitations from real systems like sprite limits causing flickering and suchlike are omitted. Essentially what we have here is a collection of “enhanced retro” games — games like you want to remember the ’80s as being like, as opposed to what they actually were.

That said, the first game in the collection, Barbuta, which I’ve spent a lot of time on this evening, has very little in the way of sounds and is resolutely old-school in its punishing difficulty and deliberate obtuseness. I absolutely loved it because it feels like something you’d play on an ’80s 8-bit micro, but I would completely understand if anyone bounced off this one hard. In UFO 50 “lore”, this game dates back to 1982 and, outside of the deliberate enhancements mentioned above, it could absolutely pass for something from the period.

And no, there are no save states. If you want to beat one of these games, you have to do it as if you were using the real machine. That said, there is a mysterious “Terminal” function built in to UFO 50, which looks as if it might be the sort of thing you put Game Genie or Action Replay-style codes into, but I haven’t figured anything out about that as yet. I’m not sure anyone has, but I’m sure some turbonerd on the Steam forums will have datamined it and spoiled it for everyone by the weekend.

Anyway, from my experience with just one of its 50 games, I can highly recommend UFO 50 so far. It’s a fascinating way of looking at gaming history and the evolution of game design over time, plus simply a really interesting project. Making 50 worthwhile games and bundling them all together for just shy of 20 quid is quite an achievement, and the indie all-stars team behind it should be very pleased with what they have seemingly accomplished.

I’m looking forward to investigating further. I actually beat Barbuta after that five hours of playing and retrying this evening, so tomorrow I can move on to some of the other games! Looking forward to it a lot. And, as I said at the start, I think this seems like a great game to do some streaming with. So I will pencil it in for Saturday while my wife is out, and see how things go from there!