When booting up a recreation like UFO 50, a assortment of 50 titles whose 80s-inspired roots belie the trendy design sensibilities that make them particular, it is simple to really feel overwhelmed.
The gathering was launched on September 18, 2024 to essential and industrial acclaim in spite of how uncommon it’s in the indie panorama, and it is exhausting to think about how one would go about tackling the development course of of such a huge homage to gaming and its historical past. So, we sat down with Derek Yu to just do that.
Yu, the rockstar indie developer behind Spelunky and Spelunky 2, labored on UFO 50 with a workforce of 5 different indie builders for over eight years.
“Everybody on the workforce loved the pleasure and freedom of 80s gaming – when recreation design was much less established and fewer dissected”
Jon Perry, a childhood buddy of Yu’s, is thought for board recreation design, however turned to video games for this challenge. Composer Eirik Suhrke has collaborated with Yu in the previous, doing the music for Spelunky and Spelunky 2. Paul Hubans is a pixel artist and indie recreation dev recognized for Madhouse, Ojiro Fumoto is thought for the smash cellular hit Downwell, and Tyriq Plummer is a pixel artist and animator additionally engaged on Catacomb Youngsters.
We start our dialogue with Yu by diving into how this workforce managed to wrangle the scope and perspective of such a large challenge whereas coping with the ordinary exigencies of making one recreation, a lot much less 50.
“While you’re engaged on a recreation, it is vital to zoom out recurrently to ensure you’re not getting too misplaced in one small half of the challenge,” he says. “That is much more essential when it is a assortment of 50 games! What helped us zoom out was setting common deadlines the place we would attempt to deliver every recreation to a sure degree of completeness.”
So far as collection-wide design ideas went, it was vital to Yu and his workforce to attach games collectively once they may. Nonetheless, the first precedence from which the whole lot else flowed was ensuring that every recreation may generate its personal distinctive enchantment.
“A very powerful factor for us was that the games have been enjoyable and fascinating to work on, in order that’s the place we began when it got here to design. However we have been at all times wanting for alternatives to attach the games collectively and reuse connections we would already made.”
Connections between completed games is one factor, however how did the workforce go about structuring their collaborative efforts to create connective tissue between builders whereas UFO 50 was a work in progress? Yu says all of it got here all the way down to setting expectations.
Whereas he and John Perry directed most of the games in the assortment, Ojiro Fumoto specialised in one title: Sundown Drive. Even Suhrke, who did music for the recreation, has a few credit to his title, as do Hubans and Plummer. This type of collaboration underscores the workforce’s capability to work collectively and respect each other’s concepts.
| Picture credit score: Mossmouth/UFO 50
“The understanding was that a director of a recreation would have ultimate say on its design, however everybody was open to collaborating and sharing their work,” Yu explains. “By launch, each recreation had gone by a number of passes by completely different individuals.”
He continues: “Everybody on the UFO 50 workforce has a broad set of abilities, however we every have our particular person strengths and areas of particular curiosity, too. We leveraged these distinctive abilities in a very natural manner – there was a lot of encouragement to only take the initiative if you happen to had a good concept.”
A number of initiatives have been scrapped throughout development, however Yu factors out the underappreciated benefit indie recreation builders have: flexibility.
“I recall solely round a half dozen games that have been scrapped, and so they have been all scrapped early on in their development. So we did not depart an excessive amount of on the reducing room flooring, in the finish. I believe that is an space the place indies can actually take benefit of their flexibility to work effectively – you do not have to make it troublesome to implement an concept or to chop one.”
In line with Yu, this flexibility prolonged into UFO 50’s 80s-inspired design. Once we ask why the UFO 50 workforce selected the period, Yu emphasizes the DIY-spirit of games at the time and the way their gameplay and interfaces usually introduced out creativity in gamers and designers alike. Basing UFO 50’s lore on a fictional online game firm that revealed titles from 1982 by 1989 felt like the pure alternative then for such an bold celebration of what games could be.
“I believe everybody on the workforce loved the pleasure and freedom of 80s gaming – when recreation design was much less established and fewer dissected,” Yu says. “And even accounting for instruction manuals, I really feel like games have been much less handholdy, typically for the worse however usually for the higher. There was a uncooked vitality that was very adventurous and the technical limitations did not get in the manner – if something, it bred a lot of creativity. We needed to seize some of that feeling whereas additionally making use of the good classes we have discovered since then.”
Capturing such a feeling in 50 games, although, took longer than anticipated. Yu had initially envisioned the challenge launching in 2018. He says a quantity of elements led to the recreation taking for much longer to come back out than he initially deliberate, half of which being the launch of Spelunky 2 in 2020.
“Partly we simply underestimated the work, which is widespread sufficient if you’re engaged on one recreation, not to mention 50 directly! Additionally, for me, that preliminary launch window was primarily based on a barely completely different concept of the assortment, the place the particular person games have been allowed to be a little extra uncooked. After we handed that date, although, it turned clear that this was one of these initiatives that wanted to cook dinner so long as it wanted to cook dinner.”
So Yu and Suhrke determined to deal with Spelunky 2 and ship that first earlier than turning their full consideration again to UFO 50.
In spite of the delay, when requested if he’d do something in a different way if he may return in time, Yu’s reply is definitive: “I would not change a factor, since each games [Spelunky 2 and UFO 50] launched and have been well-received. And typically you have to miss a deadline to place issues in the proper perspective.”
Yu says that playtesters supplied helpful ideas on how one can make the recreation really feel like a fulsome expertise in the yr main as much as its launch.
“We added most of our exterior playtesters in the final yr of development – up till that time we had our arms a lot full simply working off of our personal ideas. As soon as the games have been all playable from starting to finish and it felt like a full assortment, we began inviting buddies to attempt it out.
“Generally you have to miss a deadline to place issues in the proper perspective”
“For the most half, our testers validated the core ideas behind UFO 50. Regardless of the overwhelming nature of having 50 games obtainable at the begin, the general idea appeared compelling to individuals, particularly as they engaged increasingly more with the fictional historical past. The exhausting half was massaging all of the particulars into the proper locations and ensuring that the whole lot – the games, the library, the fiction – labored effectively collectively and felt coherent. Design-wise, a lot of our discussions round the testing have been about balancing other ways to method the assortment.”
The workforce’s method struck us as a refreshing counterpoint to the ordinary industry story of games being crunched on and launched at the final minute to fulfill company earnings targets.
Nonetheless, in spite of this fascination and all the success he discovered making UFO 50, Yu would warning new indie builders towards making such a huge challenge. Whereas smaller games can nonetheless be a highly effective car for people seeking to hone their craft, he says, treating recreation development as an iterative studying expertise is way extra rewarding (and sustainable) than banking on one encompassing concept for years on finish.
“I do not suppose UFO 50 is a nice instance for new builders to observe, as a result of in the end it is nonetheless a single massive recreation that took [over] eight years to make! That requires a lot of expertise and runway. However you might plan to launch, possibly not 50 games throughout eight years, however a number of games throughout a few years. Treating recreation development like a craft or self-discipline that must be discovered over time, throughout a number of launched initiatives, is a stable technique to decrease your danger.”
Listening to Yu’s philosophy on games as works of artwork contextualizes the prospect of future innovation in the indie house and the place the craft goes from right here. So far as the UFO 50 workforce is worried, the recreation ought to stand by itself, and post-launch help will solely come in to repair bugs and streamline the expertise.
“To me the recreation itself is the principal dialogue we’re placing on the market – as an art work, UFO 50 wasn’t designed to be one thing that retains altering an excessive amount of after launch, barring any points which might be stopping gamers from participating with it in the first place. Principally we’re having fun with watching the group expertise the recreation collectively and are attempting to make ourselves obtainable to help that as finest we will.”
Yu lights up whereas discussing why he makes games. He places ahead a perspective brimming with the variety of empathy that permeates the usually zany but completely polished merchandise for which he is recognized. His viewers has solely grown since he first launched Spelunky, a recreation that has bought over a million copies and delighted followers throughout the world. In line with Yu, games are a people-driven industry and must be handled as such, particularly in the indie house.
“The sport itself is the principal dialogue we’re placing on the market – as an art work, UFO 50 wasn’t designed to be one thing that retains altering an excessive amount of after launch”
“Games are made by individuals greater than ability units, so discover individuals you belief and luxuriate in working with before everything,” he says.
He continues to espouse this method after we ask him to elaborate on what he discovered throughout UFO 50’s development course of.
“I clearly discovered a lot from the different members of the workforce, who sharpened my eyes in just about each space of game-making. The expertise additionally validated a lot of classes I might discovered from earlier initiatives. For instance, the significance of working with individuals you belief and the pleasure of offering significant experiences that are not essentially what gamers count on or discover instantly snug.”
Yu has a radically easy vision for the games industry as knowledgeable by his expertise engaged on UFO 50. He created the challenge with a shut group of collaborators and buddies, so – after we ask what worth continuity has in recreation making – he shortly replies with the following: “I believe continuity could be helpful, for certain, however it should not be pressured – builders ought to work collectively as a result of they wish to.”
And, at the finish of the day, Yu says the impetus for UFO 50 was born out of a need to perform a easy but lofty objective: to have enjoyable making games.