A quick look at the premise was my immediate line of thinking upon booting up UFO: Unidentified Flying Objects for the first time. Just a quick skim through the basics to start; get to know the rules, the mechanics, the objectives. Surface-level details, an all-round feel of what the game is striving for. A quick twenty minute bite-size go before commencing one’s proper critique mode and tackling of this latest release. Cue my shock – but so quickly replaced by delight – that that hypothetical twenty minutes had so quickly and easily grown to two hours. What’s that old saying: “time flies when you’re having fun”? Which, naturally, is one of the more ideal outcomes you want to see emerge if you’re a developer and in Andrew Morrish’s case, UFO: Unidentified Flying Objects makes easy work of sucking its players in.
For a game whose colorfully-chirpy if a tad seen-it-all-before visual aesthetic may not impose the most ideal first impression, UFO does what any great confined-space puzzle game has done in decades past. Posing an easy-to-grasp pitch, whose skill ceiling and subsequent room for malleable strategy is invitingly high. All of which stemming from Morrish’s unusual inverting of what the term “puzzle-platformer” might entail. Where most would assume (rightly so) a sub-genre whose platforming antics put a greater emphasis on wit and mental deduction, as opposed to mere trial-and-error practice, in UFO’s case the opposite rings true. A puzzle game, wherein you are both the guiding hand steering these shapes into ideal combos as much in control of the character trapped amid these falling, multi-colored blocks. Blocks that have the potential to form perilous, platforming segments. But most importantly, segments of your own design.
Simple-enough the inversion may seem, it’s that risk of unforced errors – of failing by your own wits, or lack thereof – that gives UFO a surprising amount of mileage. Despite a relatively simple single-player progression, with multiplayer to accompany for those eager to take this to more competitive lengths, it’s through that blend of emergent decision-making together with the game’s own cunning exploring of its own concept that lends much of a players' average time with UFO to one of deep-rooted, deep-thinking enjoyment. Enjoyment not just in the bite-size repetition of building chains of colored squares, but so too in the frustration with how it can all go so terribly wrong, as noted, by one’s own hand.
It takes some doing to build a game that can shine when its players are succeeding and continue to do when they’re not. And had this been merely an assessment on around two-thirds of the game’s full form, no doubt this would be an easy recommendation. It’s when Morrish’s and indeed UFO’s confidence in the pitch so quickly morphs into complacency further down the line that things admittedly stumble right where it matters. Challenge and objectives to clear in later stages feeling less like teasing, but justifiable accolades to shoot for – more some rudimentary roadblock that worse gives little back to the player as consolation for their time spent. As a result, solid a formula it is, UFO does wind up losing a lot – though not all – its early sheen the further players progress forward. Even so, on the basis of what the game offers up to this point, UFO: Unidentified Flying Objects remains a tense, anxious but crucially of all, addictive game to invest repeated runs in.
For anyone who’s even remotely familiar with the color-matching prospect of a game like Dr. Mario or Puyo Puyo, the objective in UFO is essentially the same. Accruing points by chaining together blocks of more than two of a certain color and subsequently destroying them with your player-character’s weapon. You can also push blocks so that they slide and even collide with other blocks present to further build up connecting chains. And while there’s an option to swap out weapon types with varying attack power, fire-rate and even blow-back upon continued fire, UFO’s core loop remains relatively the same. Eventually, as you level up by way of collecting stars scattered across the space, the numeric value of destroyed blocks – and as a result, the bonus for chaining more blocks together – goes up. So too does the volume of hostile threats that also make an appearance throughout each run.
Represented by grey blocks that can’t be destroyed directly – but can be destroyed when chained together with other blocks – said blocks can spawn anything from homing missiles to patrolling enemies, to AoE energy blasts that work on a visual timer to denote when and where their blast range will be felt. As a result, games in UFO come down to balancing one’s desire to rack up as high a score as possible as quickly as possible, but more crucially, not getting hit. Receive damage, be it from an enemy, projectile or even just a falling block you weren’t paying attention to twice and it’s game over.
Again, as simple and shallow UFO’s premise may look on quick glance, it’s surprising at just how ingrained the importance of long-term strategy can feel in any one round of play. And how split-second decision and awkward sacrifices could wind up be the right call. Much like in a game such as Tetris, how that idealized build-up to some grand pay-off may become precarious if one or two unwanted elements are thrown into the mix. In UFO’s case, a grey block you’re able to’t so easily destroy. Or worse, you can destroy but requires sacrificing a chain of blocks you were saving up. Be it the manipulation of where blocks land or simply surviving, UFO quickly underscores the importance of acting fast as well as smart. And in most cases, having a back-up plan when things don’t go accordingly. A key trait players will need when it comes to progressing through the main series of stages.
To do so, players must accrue a certain amount of gems to unlock succeeding stages. This is done by achieving certain accolades like reaching a target score, chaining together a set number of boxes, gathering letters to a word, going a certain length of time without getting hit. To begin, these challenges are relatively fair and require an agreeable-enough time-sink to meet. Unfortunately as alluded to, UFO’s confidence in its core gameplay eventually gets the better of itself; posing requirements and set objectives that seem too demanding for what feels like rather diminished returns. But what makes these latter requirements so irksome is that they are the only means by which players can advance to later stages and that there’s no grade or tier-like system to reward players based on performance. It’s all or nothing – reach the required target or receive nothing. The game may toss a consolation of a gem or two a player’s way if a high-enough combo is achieved, but aside from this – combined with how high the buy-in is for later levels – UFO annoyingly comes across completely hostile and rather apathetic to the concept of acknowledging a player’s time.
That’s not to say players should be in a position of being constantly praised or showered with rewards, but UFO does eventually misjudge this crucial component. A consolation then that the main progression of the game isn’t all there is to invest in. And it’s thanks to the optional challenges – accessed by way of characters you help rescue out in the vacuum of space – that lean more towards UFO’s more platformer-oriented design, where UFO manages to cast aside some of that previous frustration. Challenges that condense and even limit proceedings to mere falling grey blocks. Resulting in scenarios that often revolve around surviving until the timer runs out – made even more strenuous by how cleverly-integrated the final ten-second count-down is. Rewards for completing these challenges – silver rank for surviving, gold rank for surviving without taking damage – can be invested into purchasing additional weapons, melee strikes and even a wider pool of power-ups to select from that can drop during stages.
Closing Comments:
A platforming-puzzler with a keen eye for intricacy and trickery alike, UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects' addictive nature is somewhat dragged down by its occasional lack of appreciation for a players' own time. Which is unfortunate given how well developer Andrew Morrish latches onto the well-trodden, block-matching concept. Providing it with a fresh twist that requires both precision and deduction in equal measure. But it’s that noted drawback on a game not quite getting the balance right in rewarding its players for the work put in that limits just how far and wide the enjoyment leads. Even so, for a game as tempting to replay as it is, UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects does just enough in its premise and its delivery to spur you on in that never-ending pursuit for a new high score.
UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects
