50 Bits of Joy
A Videogame Chased Away Some of the Depression
Amidst a brand spanking new war, ICE still committing atrocities (just a little bit quieter than before), and powerful people seemingly getting away with criminal acts, it surprised me to find even a tiny bit of joy.
But I did recently.
Fifty tiny bits of joy, actually.
I’m not much of a video game player. It’s not that I don’t like or appreciate them. I just suck at them, get frustrated, and quit pretty quickly.
Either that, or a game seems far too large and daunting for me to start. It’s the same reason I don’t start a TV show that everybody tells me I need to watch - a ton of episodes in a row seems like a big commitment, so I don’t start it at all.
That said, I do like the idea of video games. And I really, really, really like the memories of playing Sega Genesis at my friends’ houses as a kid.
Years ago I bought a Genesis Mini, a lookalike model of the original Sega Genesis that came loaded with sixty Genesis games. It was great, but it was missing quite a few games that I used to love. I couldn’t really complain, though. It’s still sixty games. Sixty mostly-good games.
There was no Sonic 3, but it had 1 and 2. That was satisfactory.
Now, if there are any federal officials reading this, here’s what I definitely, absolutely did NOT do: I 100% did not hack the Genesis Mini and add every game I’d ever played or even heard of from the Atari 2600, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega Genesis, and Game Boy Advance, and put them on the Genesis Mini.
I do NOT have the ultimate retro console in my house right now.
And I would NOT be up for having retro gaming night with anyone reading this. Nope. No way.
Emulation is wrong. I would never.
I love the old games, but a lot of them feel extremely dated. Like all things, gaming has advanced. Super Mario Wonder does things that the original Super Mario Bros never did, because in 1985 the designers at Nintendo couldn’t have come up with a concept like Wonder Flowers making a bunch of enemy plants sing in unison, or Koopas roller skating on invisible roads in the sky.
Going back to older games is so, so, so fun, but there’s a constant reminder when playing them that they’re dated.
The games don’t play as well as you remember them playing.
Playing them gives you so much joy, with a tinge of disappointment.
The nostalgia never feels quite as good as you want it to. You want the game to feel as smooth and modern as newer games, and games from the 80s simply aren’t able to do that.
Enter UFO 50
UFO 50 was made by a team of modern game designers who endeavored to put together a game collection that looks and feels like a collection of games from the 1980’s, but with modern gaming sensibilities.
They look old but play new. It's exactly how you want nostalgia to feel.
There’s fifty full games here. Like, actually complete games, all of which will likely take you hours to beat. Fifty of them.1
Okay, one of them could be beaten in like 3 minutes if you got lucky, but it took me probably two hours. It’s a rage game (similar to Getting Over It) where you fire a walrus through the air in imperfect weather conditions, trying to land on small, sometimes breakable platforms. My kids were doubled over laughing at me through failure after failure.
On the flip side, there’s a 20-30 hour western themed RPG that plays like the Super Nintendo Final Fantasy games. I haven’t played it. I suck at RPG’s. But it’s extremely well regarded by folks online who play a lot of RPG’s. Maybe I’ll give it a go some day. That day is not today.
Every different genre of game that you could imagine is in the collection. Strategy board games, a deck building game, a Civilization-like game, platformers, sports games, sprawling adventure games, and arcade-style games.
Every game feels different from the last. It’s insane, truly.
When you boot the game up, a slideshow of people “finding” an old, lost game system in an abandoned warehouse plays. The list of game cartridges appears on screen, each cartridge covered in dust and cobwebs. You select one of the games. The dust and cobwebs are swept off the cartridge and the game starts.
This lore about an abandoned warehouse and a forgotten game system goes much deeper than the opening cutscene. As you read the behind the scenes of the games in the collection, a story starts to form. Turns out, the designers of UFO 50 hid an entire story arc of how this “system” and it’s “company” UfoSoft (neither of which actually exist in real life) came to be.
The designers of the game said nothing and left it to internet sleuths to figure out the story hidden within UFO 50. It gets dark, involving a murder and possibly a cult ritual. This is the best rundown of everything that’s been found so far if you want to go down that rabbit hole. It’s dark, ridiculous, and hilarious.
They didn’t need to do this. They were making a collection of games. A hidden story about a corrupt company and a murder that may or may not ever be found by the people playing UFO 50 did not need to be added.
But they did add it. And it’s perfect.
Okay, so the games. I’m not going to talk about them all, but here are a few of my favorites in no particular order (except for numbers 1 and 2 which will forever remain as my numbers 1 and 2).
Party House
Party House is the best game, easily. I bought UFO 50 specifically to play Party House, and it’s exceeded every expectation I had. 30 of my 100+ hours playing UFO 50 has been spent with Party House.
Party House is a deckbuilder (if you’ve played Dominion, Ascension, or any of the other 5 bajillion deckbuilding games out there, this is similar), but the “cards” are people that you’re inviting to a party at your place. You have 25 days to throw the perfect party.
Throwing a good party gets you more money to throw an even bigger party the next night, and more popularity that lets you invite better guests to the next party.
The problem is, you can only invite so many wild and crazy folks before the party gets out of hand and the cops come to break it up. If you get 3 “trouble” characters, round over. You get nothing.
Every game of Party House is randomized with a different set of characters, and you have to figure out how the heck to make those characters work in sync with one another. The game is endlessly replayable. It would be the perfect phone game, honestly. They should absolutely spin it off into its own game on iPhone/android.
If they make it into a physical card game I'll buy it immediately. It'll be a lot more fiddly to play with cards, but I'd do it.
Party House is not only my favorite game on UFO 50, it's one of my favorite games ever.
Mini & Max
Mini & Max is a 2d platformer that plays like Mario 2, but is actually a sprawling adventure game.
As it begins, you and your dog are locked in the storage closet by your older sister. After getting bored, your dog starts talking to you and tells you that you two have the power to shrink to the size of ants.
Don’t overthink it.
What results is a platform game similar in feel to Mario, but plays more like something like Skyrim or Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Missions are everywhere in the game, and each mission progresses you toward the end of the game. But you can do things and discover things in any order you’d like.
Later in the game you’ll be able to shrink to the molecular level, and the game gets like three times as big.
It’s incredible. I was sad when it ended. I want Mini & Max 2, but bigger. Maybe in 3d like Mario 64.
Mortol
Mortol is like Lemmings meets Mario. You start level 1 with 20 lives, and need to finish the level with at least one. The thing is, you’ll sometimes have to sacrifice your own people to progress. Fly them into the wall and use their corpses like a step ladder. Let them drown and then jump on their corpse to get over a lake. Set them on fire and use that fire to ignite wood that’s blocking your path. Blow them up to break through stone barriers.
It sounds horrifying, but the cartooniness and the old, 1985 look of the whole thing makes it charming.
Kick Club
What if Bubble Bobble was soccer?
I’m super addicted to this game lately. I used to love Bubble Bobble, but playing it in 2026….it definitely has aged.
Kick Club looks old and dated (on purpose), but plays so smoothly.
Night Manor
A point-and-click adventure game that feels like an escape room. This game is genuinely scary at times. Despite looking old and pixelated, when the killer jumped out, it occasionally got my heart rate up.
Even though I beat it and know the secrets now (making the replayability not great), I found out that there’s a code you can enter that turns the killer into a giant hamster brandishing a knife.
So I’m definitely gonna speedrun the game again.
Avianos
Avianos confused me so much at first. I tried it once, then put it away and didn’t touch it again for a month.
On a whim I tried it again. I’m so glad I did.
This is straight-up Civilization.
But way shorter. And prehistoric.
Quibble Race
It’s a game where you bet on horse races, but the horses are adorable aliens.
Oh, and you can bribe the mafia to juice up your alien with steroids, or to kneecap or poison the ones you’re betting against.
It’s so stupid and I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Seaside Drive
A gorgeous shooter where you drive a Corvette at sunset in Miami and blow up a bunch of spaceships and whatnot.
Magic Garden
Snake meets Pac-Man. That's it. That's the game. And it's a perfect combo.
Gushing about video games isn't something I do on here much.
It's not something I do much ever, honestly.
But in a world that's kind of a trash fire, and with the depression lately making me want to crawl in a hole and stay there, it's important to find those bits of joy where I can.
This is mine right now.
What (if any) bits of joy you've found lately?
For 25 bucks. It's an insane deal.