UFO50 is the ultimate trial and error experience

May 27th, 2026

"50 just seemed like the first number that was just completely undeniable... like what's the number that just advertises itself with its just with its own existence" said Derek Yu (one of the six developers of UFO50). Consumers buy the game for the container, a collection of 50 games.

Video game enthusiasts are obsessed with categories and describing a game as the combination of other games. "Hollow Knight is 2D soulslike-metroidvania" meaning its a 2D game, with boss fights similar to Dark Souls, and world exploration similar Metroid and Castlevania. That's like 3 categories right there. Developers have to create games that fit into a genre so they can be marketable. It's scary to make something outside of these categories. If your game can be described as the GTA of blah blah blah, it's already going to be profitable.

In UFO50 The developers can make whatever kind of game they want. They don't have to worry about if their game would sell well as an individual product. They mentioned how most of their concepts comes from their backlog of silly game ideas that they never got to make. You can try to categorize the games within UFO50, but what's the point. You can tell someone that Magic Garden is the combination of Snake and Pacman, but they are already going to play it if they own UFO50. There is no need to care about genres in this context.

UFO50's advertisements focus on showcasing variety, and do not explain what any game actually is. The player goes into each of these games with no knowledge, which provides surprises. When you remove the expectations of a genre, the genre itself can be a suprise aswell. You might find out you like a genre by accidentally playing it. You might enjoy something that you would've never purchased individually.

When you purchase a normal video game, you're hoping you get your moneys worth. You might have sunk cost fallacy and keep playing it even if you don't like it. In UFO50 however, if you don't like the first game you play, you can go to the next one. You can play the them in whatever order you want. You can complete each one before you move onto the next, or you can play them for like 3 minutes each until you find one that you like. There is no right or wrong way to experience the collection.

The games are retro inspired, meaning there is pretty much no instruction on what to do. You are supposed to just press random buttons to figure it out. And once you think you've figured something out, the game is quick to humble you. This was common in NES titles due to technological restrictions, but is lacking in modern games.

UFO50 forces trial and error, something that is being removed from our modern world. We don't click through different websites since Google Gemini gives us what we are looking for. We can check up on friends' social medias instead of actually reaching out to them. We don't have to try new video games, we can just buy sequels to games we already like. In UFO50 you have to do a little bit of exploring to find your favorite game, and that's okay. The games are difficult and take a lot of tries to figure out, and that's also okay. It's okay for designers to intentionally create friction, especially because it contrasts from our day to day tasks.

Although I think UFO 50 is great for all of these trial and error reasons I've mentioned, I question whether the game is harmful to our attention spans. There's actually less friction when switching from game to game compared to the Steam library or the Nintendo Switch home screen. The experience is far from an algorithmic feed that keeps you addicted to an app, but at the same time, I don't think I am enjoying UFO 50 if I am moving from game to game every couple of minutes. The experience is the most enjoyable when you are playing just one game. It's when someone asks me "What game are you playing?" and I respond with the title of the individual games, opposed to just saying "UFO50". I think the trial and error of playing all of the games is necessary to get to the ones you are really going to enjoy, but you can't stop there. You have to enjoy the games you like and ignore any guilt about ditching the games you don't like.

My opinion of this game changes like every month. I've only "beaten" like four games. So who knows, maybe I'll be writing about this again.