UFO 50 has left vee in such a weird philosophical mindstate on the logos of a game and if its meta-game can tell a story on its own effectively.

Let's start with this: UFO 50 is a single game that tells a story. That story is "Someone found a box of old games spanning the second-to-third generation console era". Under that umbrella is 50 smaller games. But if you look at this overarcing story UFO 50 tries to tell, it's one unit with a story sitting above the 50 games.

From here the story goes that the console had a D-pad and two buttons. A strange limitation that puts the LX-III somewhere in the company of the 2600, Amiga or extremely early DOS, but even then that's not right because those all had alternative input options. It has a specific color palette, specific sound channel capability, etc. All these games adhere to these limitations.

If you arrange the games chronologically through their fantasy release dates, you see a timeline roughly similar to Atari/NES development as the developers for the LX-III tried new things that ultimately did or did not work. Early games are slow and cumbersome and clunky, mid-generation ones try new experimental things and produce obtuse control structures and complicated mechanics, then the later ones refine the experiments into a more cohesive experience.

Viewing one of the games in a vacuum, you might declare some of them bad. But in the whole of "UFO 50 tells the story of a console's library and its development" is it?

I guess this is a classical argument on if games can exist as art. I think some streamer I watch said it best there: They can but you have to remember they have to be a game too. However, UFO 50's story is "some of the LX-III games weren't that good". How do you convey that and not produce a bad play experience? Do you even want to?

There isn't really an answer, and UFO 50 especially is well equipped to just have a game in there be a stinker as part of telling that story because you can just choose to not play it. I wouldn't call any of what I saw "a stinker" but you know.

It's an interesting debate: how much dev time should you sink into something that is "unfun" just to set the story, tone, and mood you want. I guess the existence of Dark Souls says that at least some people believe "All of it" -- spicy take I know :P

Ultimately I think UFO 50 does remember the games need to stand alone pretty well, even while telling this overarcing story of the evolution of game development for some fantasy console.