Secrets

UFO50 was a collection of 50 games made over the course of seven years by LX Systems, later UFOSoft. It was made in celebration of their 50th game, and while it seems like it might never have been released, it was found 30 years later by some nerds in an old warehouse, as seen in the cracktro intro for the game.

Secrets

So, what’s the purpose of all this? UFO 50 is just a collection of 50 games with a fake backstory. Why go through all the trouble to make a fake backstory, with fake characters, a fake murder coverup, and a fake CEO who hordes games instead of releasing them for people to play and use, cultivating a collection for himself and no one else? What is the point of UFO 50?

Secrets

UFO 50 is about preservation.

As we get further into the future, more and more games are lost to time. People made these. These aren’t just products to make a profit, and they aren’t just code with no purpose. People put hours, days, years into creating them. They are the culmination of creative people who care about the thing they love. Games. And it’s easy to forget that, especially as these people and their work is swept under the rug. As the game are forgotten, lost to time, locked away behind CEO’s vaults in case they might possibly sell them in the future, or locked in personal collections and never shown to the public, those people are forgotten as well. All their work, their love, their passion, it’s lost.

Secrets

UFO 50 is about preservation. Greg Milk’s entire goal, from creating UFO 50, under Nemuru’s leadership, to hiding hints and messages and an entire game that shows him, his coworkers, and the world they had to live in, it’s a bright, blinding message that they were there. They were the people, the love, and the passion behind those games. And while someone like Nemuru might try to seal away play for himself, some might leak out, and be preserved, by those who love it. It might be played, and enjoyed, for years to come. It might, some 30 years in the future, be the topic of 33.8k words of reviews written by a dork in her basement. It might even be her game of the year.

Secrets

UFO 50 is about love. And I hope we don’t ever forget that. May it shine on, forever.