I know it doesn't /really/ matter since the team is all Derek's pals, but it still feels like his reputation benefits from this in noted disproportion to the rest.
This is also rather ironic for me because the ones Derek verifiably directed are mostly my least favourite (lol)
My latest UFO 50 opinion is that the framing-story developer pseudonyms in each game's credits are bad because of how effectively they muddy which people on the team actually designed each game, resulting in uncurious gamers assuming or acting like Derek Yu did most of it.
Just realised you can savescum UFO 50 arcade games' streak achievements fully in-game by simply copying your entire UFO 50 profile to a different slot and then copying it back afterwards, but have decided to virtuously not do this out of the goodness and sugariness of my heart.
MY FACE WHEN I LOOK UP THE MANUAL FOR AIR FORTRESS (HAL Laboratory, 1987) ON ARCHIVE DOT ORG, AND A) SOMEONE WROTE ONE OF THE PASSWORDS IN PENCIL ON THE PAGE
AND B) IT'S THE SAME FREAKING PASSWORD SHOWN ON THE SCREENSHOT IN THE "GAME OVER" SECTION TWO PAGES LATER
On the other side, though, I've now reconstructed the rectangle solidity code I made in 2019 and then never used – and it even works with constantly rotating rectangles.
Me a few days ago: "UFO 50 is reawakening my game making spirit… The zeitgeist is turning… I need to return to webgame coding immediately…"
Me, today, after spending 4 hours debugging non-axis-aligned hitbox separation code: "Ahhhh, just like oooooooooold times."
Watching some Tetris: The Absolute - The Grand Master 2 Plus
If you think UFO 50 having fifty games is hot, wait until System Erasure releases their own anthology which, in reference to their favourite number, contains zero games
UFO 50 is reminding me of a lot of retro games for the first time in years… not just NES games like Magical Doropie or Xexyz or Over Horizon, but freeware like Princess Remedy or Poyo… Games with that same "faintly alien" theming, and simple-but-characteristic game mechanics…
The funniest part of only loving two games in UFO 50 is that when I tune into a stream of it, there's only a 4% chance they'll actually be playing something I want to watch
In addition, the only real-world developer that comes to mind that vaguely resembles this kind of output is Compile… though even then, you have to check the early 90s to see their broadest genre spread.
(Though, they did make the most UFO 50-ish NES game, The Guardian Legend…)
I think it's funny when people say UFO 50 embodies "the spirit of the NES", when to me the only real-world "console" that vaguely lines up with this eclectic mix of genres is the MSX.
Like, the menu icons are floppy disks and not cartridges for a reason.
Funny thing about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate having 86 characters is that the matchup grids look like this
I think in retrospect the one thing that makes UFO 50 "work" isn't actually anything to do with how the games are designed, but just the graphical/audio unification across all of them - the "fantasy console" conceit.
That, by itself, lends a certain credibility to all the games. Making all the games look and sound like they belong together makes you more open-hearted to giving them all a chance.
It's like how the PICO-8 is so beloved, even though its limitations are practically hellish.
THIS IS THE PLOT OF ZERORANGER
I feel bad for Electrolemon because at this point I've forgotten basically everything that happens in those September 21st videos, but can inexplicably recite the entire "rejected Ready Player One theme song" from memory
Everyone is celebrating the hard-to-control "Moon Cat", from UFO 50… and yet, NO ONE is celebrating the hard-to-control "Slug Cat", from Rain World…………………… I see how it is…………
Wikipedia articles that look photoshopped
In modern games, the quest log would give objective feedback every step of the way, carefully mediating between the game world and yourself, making this trust no longer either necessary or possible… and, as a result, reducing the quest itself to just plain dry execution.
Hearing, for instance, an NPC talk about a lost object in a cave, and then going and collecting an unusual object from some cave and returning, with no UI prompts indicating that you are doing the right thing, is trusting that both you and the game are being understood.
Thinking about how even basic fetch-quests in retro games had this kind of magic to them /because/ there was no quest log UI or feedback for them… It made the act of interpreting the quest and acting on it feel like communicating with the game on an indirect, implicit level.
What?? *looks over shoulder while painting a big placard reading "DON'T CALL A VIDEOGAME PUZZLE AN 'ARG' UNLESS YOU HAVE TO CALL A 1-800 NUMBER IN REAL LIFE IN ORDER TO SOLVE IT"* Oh, I'm just relaxing, vibing, being at peace with the world. Now if you'll excuse me… *slams door*
Puyo Puyo (arcade, 1992) is well known for being "Nintendo Hard"[1][2]
Gonna post game footage and label it "Wow UFO 50 is going bananas right now" and see how long it takes people to realise it's actually the card game from the Shovel Knight DLC
Troubling how so many are rushing to play "UFO 50"… when they could simply play Undefined Fantastic Object fifty times…
When Mario taunts in Super Smash Bros.
The games do seem good, but… I think the framing story, fake 1980s creation dates, and so on, is kind of misrepresenting them. This is really not trying to rival the Game Center CX games's fidelity to the era's design trends or play experience.
I actually did try UFO 50, and it's making an above-expectations impression so far. I've played one game that on face value looks just like Little Nemo: The Dream Master but which is actually Uurnog Uurnlimited.
UFO 50 looking great so far
Desert Golfing holes at their most elegant
They really are just trying absolutely everything, aren't they
People on Mastodon are hyping up a different article on this blog, but I find the "custom Javascript scrollbar tutorial" significantly funnier
https://modem.io/blog/scrollbars/Decided to boot this game (Moudjiya) back up and see if I can figure it out… I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of it.
Watching some Smash Bros.
Wikipedia paragraphs that instill confidence and reassurance
As I understand it, each classic Super Mario platformer has these as their core themes:
SMB1: Alice in Wonderland
SMB2: Masks (from Fuji TV's Yume Koujou event)
SMB3: Japanese mythology
SMW: Dinosaurs
SML1: Ancient civilisations
SML2: Uhhhhhhh…… every wacky idea they had left??
On my website's microblog, click these icons on each post to see their corresponding releases on each domain, if you are curious to check out any responses they may have received.
Great news!! Spurred on by certain recent events, I've now updated my hand-coded social media crossposter script to transfer posts into Bluesky as well! Now you can read my tweets in five different domains at once (four social apps + my website).
