W.hen he was a schoolboy, Derek Yu, one of the early indie gaming superstars of the 2000s, designed games on graph paper with his friend Jon Perry. After Yu’s first big game, creepybecame a success, he and Perry agreed to collaborate again, no longer as classmates but as men in their 40s. This sweet backstory instills UFO 50a dizzyingly ambitious collection of 50 games that, according to the narrative framework, were created by a fictional game company during the eight-year period between 1982 and 1989. Each game has the aesthetic of an Atari 2600 or NES classic: chunky sprites , a chiptune soundtrack, but uses current design trends and understanding to inject modern freshness into old-looking games.
Why 50? Who knows. But it’s a high enough number that Yu and Perry (and some supportive developer friends) have been able to showcase their design talents in an electrifying range of genres, some of which are familiar, others entirely new. For example, in party houseWe should try to throw the best house party by striking the perfect balance of guests, from lively but problematic rock stars to petable dogs and comedians who provoke laughter at a financial cost. You’re scored on the quality of the evening you throw, with penalties if neighbors complain or the fire department decides your party has become dangerously crowded. Others try to perfect the games of the time: night mansion It’s a point-and-click horror story where you’re chased through a mansion; bushido ball an Edo era themed version of Reek; Railway robbery A kinetic action-stealth game where you play as an outlaw and his horse organizing a series of train heists.
For Yu and Perry, it has been an absurdly ambitious task, multiplying the challenges and times involved in creating a single video game by a factor of 50. For us, the result is a gift of wild generosity, a demonstration of how much creative ground untapped remains even in the roughest-looking video games.