My five favourite games from UFO 50 and why you won’t agree

A reader explains why he thinks everyone should play indie compilation UFO 50 and why no-one will agree on which are its best games.

UFO 50 was created by Derek Yu (creator of Spelunky), his childhood friend Jon Perry, and a load of other extremely talented game developers. The game was announced in 2017 and finally came out last month and I am pleased to say the wait was more than worth it.

UFO 50 is a collection of 50 complete 8-bit style games (not mini-games) created by the fictional company UFOSoft, with many lasting several hours. As of the time of writing, I have spent around 27 hours on the game and have completed six games and have 100% on no games. There’s so much to explore and I imagine I will be playing this game for many more months (years?) to come. Here’s some of my personal favourites.

Party House

You’re having a house party and need to invite guests but you want to make sure they’re worth it, whether they bring more cash in or make your party more popular. You also need to make sure the party doesn’t get too rowdy or someone will call the cops! This is one of the most simple games in the collection but it’s also one of the best.

Most time will be spent in the ‘shop’ section deciding which guests you would like to add to your roster, all of who cost popularity to add. Some earn popularity, some earn cash, and some have special abilities. As you use your cash to expand the house, the game really shines. Using your abilities, you’ll find yourself booting, swapping and predicting guests, while watching those numbers tick up ever so satisfyingly.

Once you get popular enough, you can start to add star characters to your roster. You have 25 days and 25 parties to get four-star characters at one time to throw the ultimate party. With five scenarios to pick from, each with different characters and a random scenario mode, it’s easy to sink several hours into this one.

Party House from UFO 50 — Party House is a lot of people’s favourite (Mossmouth)

You can also sponsor quibbles, which will give you more money when they win, encouraging you to go for the underdogs which makes for some of the most entertaining races. Watching these quibbles constantly fall over and banging the table as your prize quibble falls over and dies is one of the most entertaining experiences gaming has to offer, especially in three-player co-op.

Devilition

Devils have invaded the town and it’s your job to stop them! In each of the 10 rounds, you must use your randomly-assigned characters (and cannons) to create a chain reaction on a 10×10 board that will kill all of the devils. However, you must avoid killing the villagers, as if there are more devils than villagers at the end of the round then you lose! Once you have placed all of the characters, you may detonate one of them and begin the chain reaction. Watching as your creation destroys everything in sight is immensely satisfying.

There’re many more games in the collection I would have loved to talk about but the best thing I can say is just go play UFO 50 for yourself. What’s so magical about the game is that everyone has a completely different experience and everyone’s top five will be vastly different. By the time I reach 50 hours, this list will probably have changed entirely – there’s still 15 games I haven’t got round to at all!

By reader Daniel T.