Whereas enjoying UFO 50 for this assessment, I visited an exhibition at London’s Science Museum: Energy Up – a hands-on tour of the final 5 a long time of video video games. There, in an expansive, darkish basement, an orange-illuminated wall of computer systems and consoles took me proper by means of the Nineteen Eighties. I sampled such delicacies as a flickery Chuckie Egg on the BBC Micro, an Asteroids-type recreation on the Vectrex, and Metroid on the NES. It was like an 8-bit time machine, beep-blooping me into any yr I fancied, to have a bit of style of what was there.
UFO 50 is rather like that – besides the time machine has taken a improper flip and ended up in a parallel universe. Right here, a pioneering (fictional) firm, UFO Gentle, produced a snazzy dwelling console known as the Lazer-X, then prolifically churned out video games for it over eight years from 1982 to 1989. The IRL builders – a gaggle of six indie devs at Mossmouth (Derek Yu’s studio behind Spelunky) – calling themselves the “UFO 50 Restoration Crew”, unearthed this machine. In addition they rescued 50 of its video games, so the story goes, and lovingly restored them in order that gamers might transport themselves again by means of “historical past”.
And discuss committing to the bit. UFO 50 opens with the credit (in any other case you’d must get by means of 50 video games to see them, I assume), through which the crew is seen in lo-fi photographs discovering and rescuing the Lazer-X and its video games. Then, you see a screenful of fifty disks, navigated utilizing solely the d-pad and two buttons discovered on the Lazer-X itself. Highlighting a recreation provides you solely the slightest data, instantly creating a way of exploration. Every equally alluring, it’s virtually not possible to decide on the place to start out. Pondering I’d must play all of them for this assessment, I went chronologically, leaping in with 1982’s Barbuta.
One distinctive factor concerning the video games of the ’80s was how unfair they might typically be. No tutorials, no hand-holding, however a variety of trial and error. I received’t spoil it, however the first button-press of the primary recreation of the anthology is a joke riffing on that – and a reasonably good one, too. ‘Barbuta’ is a rudimentary Metroidvania which, whereas somewhat inscrutable, is stuffed with attraction. Earlier than I knew it, an hour had disappeared, and I realised I’d solely illuminated one of many icons on the jam-packed recreation choice display screen. Pushing on in chronological order was going to be too workmanlike, so I simply began to browse. And that’s the place the enjoyment of UFO 50 actually comes out.
In an Edge journal interview in 2024, co-developer and composer Eirik Suhrke defined that the overwhelming one-time dump of fifty video games – not gated, not structured – was meant to conjure the sensation of choosing by means of shareware titles or demo discs. You may also say it’s like scrolling by means of a pile of ROMs. It’s the alternative of compacting each final drop out of the one recreation you bought for Christmas as a child: nothing must be performed for various moments for those who don’t need to. Switching video games is so speedy and frictionless that the massive catalogue quickly merges into one singular recreation expertise.
You would possibly examine it to WarioWare in that regard, however whereas Wario’s sequences of micro-games instantly dissolved into only one uber-game, the elements of UFO 50 are way more substantial, and the general recreation due to this fact completely epic. Its part elements could embrace comparatively throwaway arcade titles, like ‘Magic Backyard’ and ‘Ninpek’ (though even these carry some good concepts), however there’s additionally a completely fledged JRPG, an excellent deck builder, a number of puzzle video games, platformers, sequels to these platformers…. These are 50 full video games, prepared to choose up and put down, such as you’re strolling across the Science Museum’s reveals. Some will land with you, some received’t, however the luxurious of getting all of them there means you’ll dip into genres you may not usually go for. You want solely play any recreation for so long as your curiosity lasts – however too a lot of them caught me off guard, and the hours disappeared unnoticed.
In a means, in fact, UFO 50 is a examine of the true historical past of video games – the conventions, applied sciences and design ideas that each one needed to discover their toes in these early years. However since this is only one interpretation of recreation historical past, it’s very strongly subjective. As such, it’s not exclusionary – not the personal area of specialists or older gamers: a 12-year-old in 2025 might decide this all up with out ever having seen a CRT. It’s significantly fascinating then to think about the private gaming historical past of the builders – wouldn’t it’s fascinating to know what formed their fantasy of gaming’s development by means of the 80s? Fortunately sufficient, Derek Yu appeared on the podcast My Good Console when UFO 50 launched on Steam, and shared simply that.
He advised of his expertise of NetHack, a 1987 roguelike. Greater than the sport itself, the fascination was that he discovered it on a disk in his home and loaded it up in DOS, not even figuring out whether or not it was a recreation in any respect. The pure thriller of that comes throughout when diving into some random choice in UFO 50. Yu additionally talked about his dad drawing maps of The Legend of Zelda – maybe no shock, then, that ‘Barbuta’ includes a clean grid within the nook of the UI, virtually shouting at you to get your graph paper, like a pixelated maths trainer.
Whereas the joyous thriller of flicking by means of disks is all there by design, there’s one unplanned reality about UFO 50: it took a real-world eight years to make – not the same old two or three. That in itself is an attractive story: whereas there are wealthy snippets of the historical past of UFO Gentle’s video games and development, I’d lap up a model of the sport that spelled out the true historical past of Mossmouth and its eight-year quest. Which video games got here first? What led to what? How had been all of the inevitable ups and downs?
Conclusion
What stands out about UFO 50, Mossmouth’s pleasant assortment of retro-styled video games, shouldn’t be that so a lot of them are absolute bangers – though they’re – somewhat, it’s the truth that it genuinely all comes collectively as a single expertise. On this recreation, you’re a customer in some fantastic exhibition, and UFO 50 is your 8-bit time machine. It is magnificent, and an ideal match for Change.
