“It’s a bit overwhelming.”
Or it’s a game collection about memory, anyway, as it contains 50 of the things.
Maybe you borrowed a bunch of carts from a friend and they picked a few at random.
“As kids, we released some freeware games as ‘Blackeye Software’.
“But it occurred to me,” Yu says.
That’s how UFO 50’s collection concept came about - a big game made of small games.
Although, granted, Yu prefers not to call the games small.
“Some of them are pretty sizable!”
UFO 50 is a fascinating thing, but it’s surprisingly daunting at first.
“It is a bit overwhelming,” Yu laughs.
To give players a little orientation, UFO 50 comes with a fake backstory of sorts.
These are all games made by a publisher called UFO Soft, for its 8-bit console the LX.
It’s a familiar genre, after all, but still an oddity for the 8-bit era.
“Oh, for sure,” he says.
We’re also hoping we can show people there are different ways to approach games.
Yu and co have found that the collection framework naturally encourages players to approach games in different ways.
Inevitably, with 50 games to be made, UFO 50 had a protracted development.
I ask Yu if there were any games that sort of got away from them during development.
Did any games that started small turn big, and did any totally transform over time?
“Jon is an accomplished tabletop game designer and really enjoys multiplayer games,” Yu says.
And I was directing a cyberpunk RPG that was eventually replaced with Magic Garden, of all things.
The Magic Garden point is interesting.
To work as a collection, UFO 50 must be surprising, but it must also be balanced.
I’ve wondered while playing how much thought went into getting that balance just the way the developers wanted.
Did they ever find themselves making a game because the collection just needed that specific genre?
And through that process, each game’s identity actually became stronger because of its connection to the whole.
Before we sign off, Yu admits that his personal favourite game in UFO 50 changes with his mood.
“That game and Pingolf are two titles that I love popping into whenever I get the chance.
