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After his smash-hit Spelunky, Derek Yu has been rather quiet. However, it’s been announced that in 2018, Yu will be returning with not one game, but 50 of them. The game is called UFO 50 and has been created in collaboration with the bright minds behind Downwell, Time Barons, Skorpulac and Madhouse. 50 games and not one of them is a ‘randomly generated’ platform game? Wow.
UFO 50 is a collection of 50 single player and multiplayer games, from a wide-range of genres, ranging from platformers, beat ‘em ups, sports puzzle games and shoot ‘em ups to RPGs. That’s a massive undertaking. The website reads, ‘Our goal is to combine a familiar 8-bit aesthetic with new ideas and modern game design sensibilities’, and is clear that ‘they are full games and not microgames or minigames! Completing the entire collection could easily take over a hundred hours’.
The project will see Yu working with four other developers. Each game has a director who chose the core concept, but everyone worked on different aspects of the design, art and programming on games they didn’t direct.
The story of the UFO 50 project is based on that of a fictional 80’s game’s company that was obscure but apparently well ahead of its time. As for the games, ‘They’re all connected by a unique 32-color palette and other restrictions we decided on to make them feel more authentic’, which is essentially the devs playing a role on top of creating games. This is getting more intriguing by the minute.
Around a third of the games in UFO 50 will feature multiplayer or cooperative modes, with the rest being single-player experiences. Meaning there’ll be something for everyone.
UFO 50 is due to release in 2018 on PC. More news on other platforms will follow the release of the initial release of the title on PC.
