UFO Guide & Vid script v.01

- UFO 50 Introduction and why you should Dust Off Pilot's Quest First -
UFO50 is a compilation of 50 games by UFOSOFT and they’re ports of their works for the LX console, PC that was competing with the NES in the 90s.
There is no truth to anything in the first sentence. There are 51 games total. They were made by Mossmouth, a collaboration of devs, some known for games like Spelunky or Downwell. UFOSoft and LX consoles are fictional and the games are all retro inspired indies, some being dated even for the 90s.
But I do definitely recommend it, if only to try out all the titles and find the ones that click with you. Most people play and try to complete these games chronologically or at least, how they were released in chronological meta narrative. It’s not a good idea, because while in the universe where LX was successful, Barbuta was a cult classic, nowadays it feels like a mix between the first Prince of Persia and La-Mulana. There are possible cheat codes you can use to make almost every game easier or varied, but I don’t recommend it because you can’t Gold/Cherry or even save them in most cases.

So as a first game I recommend you to dust off Pilot Quest. Is it a great game? No. Did I like it the most? No, that’s the next video. So why then? In short, in Pilot’s Quest you crash your UFO spaceship on an island safe zone, where you can grow Moon Drops, turn them into ingots and only if you have enough resources you can venture into Wild Zone to eventually find 3 missing parts of the spaceship, where taking damage reduces your time and anything you find you have to bring back to Safe Zone before time runs out. So it’s sort of a Top Down Zelda meets… Cookie Clicker? And just like with Zoomie idler, it can run in the background. That’s the main reason why you should dust off this title and return to it from time to time. Your friends and slaves will run in the background while you’re playing other games in UFO50 compilation or even if you’re just hanging on the menu screen. There is a resource cap limit so you are encouraged to return to Pilot’s Quest every once in a while.

The wild zone is also different per playthrough, with differently connected routes and each cave entrance can either take you to one of 3 dungeons with the spaceship part, or it can be a place for the NPCs, like the other stranded pilot that just accepted this planet, Gambling for coins or two shy friends, with one asking you to deliver the letter to the other one, which you should do ASAP because you get a Ray gun by doing so (sadly Ray gun removes interacting with nothing that actually clears projectiles off the screen). Once you do, defeat the spider boss and bring her to the Safe zone so you can make spider silk resources and also pick up the gear so your slaves can make SCIENCE resources. While exploring the Wild zone I do recommend you map out the more important places and all cave entrances IRL because you might forget where each one takes since technically you should return to this game only occasionally between playing games. And also don’t overextend your visit in the Wild zone, when you have 100 or less seconds, return ASAP, hopefully you won’t run into too many enemies so if you want to be cautious, defeat them all during your ventures into the unknown.

Once you get silos to 15 meat or so, you probably won’t have any issue with the dungeons or their bosses. In the gold dungeons you can find these green tentacle monsters that can extend your time in the wild zone, which will be helpful for getting the cherry - which is an extra trophy you usually get for beating the game perfectly or doing something really special, however I’d recommend you to first beat the game normally only then consider doing said cherry. By beating the game your reward is… a restart! Yes, it’s looping. But now you can increase more of your stats via these statues in the Safe Zone. I’ve beaten and made progress for the entire first run in this game just from playing and taking breaks from Grimstone so theoretically by returning to it during all 51 games, you could beat this game like 20 times to have more buffs from the statues? The main question is, why would you? Well, the cherry requirement is beating a game with a totem. How do you get said totem? By finding this guy - Nozzlo, beating and chasing him 9 TIMES during a SINGLE WILD ZONE VISIT and during the final bout, he actually becomes an actual boss. I’ve heard stories of people being set back quite a bit during the 9th spar, so be prepared and only do it as the absolute last thing you need to do for your run with all the upgrades unlocked. I don’t know if Nozzlo can spawn before beating the game once, it didn’t for me, but I will correct myself in the comments if he does.

So yes. That’s UFO50’s Pilot’s Quest, with my short guide and tips for it. I’d rate the overall game as B- tier, but it can be noticeably worse if you ignore it and let’s say, leave it as the last title to perfect in this collection.


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- UFO 50's Grimstone - Guide, Tips and Other Autism -

A single full playthrough of Grimstone from UFO 50 took me 26 hours. I do recommend you to try the game blind, but if you’re curious about tips, random guide to random moments of the game and a little bit of a review, this game’s for you. Obviously, this game is inspired by first Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games, with the twist being it’s actually a western setup in actual hell with demons and angels roaming about and you get to pick your team for the entire game, 4 out of 8 choices (you can go solo, but there’s not benefit to that, and I got a cherry on my first playthrough with 4 party members). Technically, there are no bad options, with each party member having their own strengths and weaknesses, unique usable and passive skills, with anything that receives Melee or Pistols2 in early levels being great for just being able to ignore defence of bosses and some enemies, however there’s one that will probably allow you most options, that being Umbra the Shaman. And yeah, I’m going to use their default names here.

She receives usable skills not from levelling up but from interacting with certain animals in the world, with 10 skills at the end of the journey.
These are:
- either Forage or small healing spell from Rabbit - you should pick Forage for farming early money, restoration items from the sparkling woods in and in late game it trivialises the game thanks to a certain spot,
- Flap that increases Evasion for single party member or Leach that inflicts damage and heals user from Bat - pick Flap unless you have Anne in team because she gets team wide Evasion buff,
either Howl that increases Attack for single party member or Fang from the Wolf, I recommend Howl although Fang does trivialize some early encounters due to ignoring defence,
-Hawkeye that increases the size of Critical Hits for party members or waves that hits all enemies from Hawk, pick either, you get an item from the sheriff soon that lets you learn Focused.
-Either Snap or Shield from Turtle, I recommend Snap to lower boss’ attack, although if you don’t have Doc, Shield might be a better option and Snap doesn’t always land due to Boss’ high resistance.
-Either Gallop or Kick from Horse, Gallop just giving party wide speed increases that is… rarely useful, although Kick might get outclassed soon.
-Regen or Camouflage, one healing whole team by decent amount and removing paralysis that I’ve never seen inflict and the other giving effect of Salt, monster and random encounter repelling item for 100 steps, however this effect isn’t exactly sure proof and enemies might still spawn, I recommend Camo here more because there are other ways to heal whole party and there are good healing items like Medkits that give you up to 4 uses, meanwhile Camo’s only alternative is an item that wastes a slot.
-From snake that you should probably skip the first time going through the hole maze, either Squeeze that can paralyse/act like lasso on enemies or… just pick Squeeze.
While Wolf will give Umbra either Crush or Another strong heal, Crush does up to 500 damage ignoring defence, so you know what to choose there;
-Either Flurry, a nuke against enemies or Revive. The last choice is up to you, but I personally enjoyed Flurry, due to already having Doc that learns Revive from bringing Medkit roughly in the middle of the game. Technically she can also find and use Bows, but the damage prep for using it just wasn’t worth half of the time, sadly.

She also gets a special amulet/scarf from her mom in the Cactus Temple, but it gets outclassed statwise, but there might be something the game doesn’t tell you about it. Well, that’s a lot of tips for just a single party member eh? The rest is up to you. I don’t have experience with beating the game with all of them, but I’ll provide what I know, figured out and learned from others peers.

-Characters specialising in Gatling Guns and Shotguns seem amazing at first, but the fact you can’t land a critical hit with them, is actually a massive downgrade, especially since there are so many bosses and enemies that become straight up immune to damage not from Crits. That being said you probably want someone who can wield a Rifle (I had no one who did) because despite tiny hitbox size, they scale amazingly with Hawkeye/Focused status and the best gun in the game, which you can get from getting Abyssidian, either from 1% Mining it or from really high price from the old dude in Pleasant.
-Doc is probably the easiest party member to recommend after Umbra, simply because he’s a jack of all trades and master of Healing and Tanking, with potential to deal massive damage just from Pistols because he can’t wield anything that requires two hands. He also works great with Forage users because he uses healing items to heal more. He might learn Antidote skill a bit too late and other than the Medkit for Revive, I don’t think he’s got any unique interactions.
-Both Rufus and Anne were thought to be the worst party members by other people I know and it makes sense, but what I tell you these two are secretly OP under the right circumstances?
-Rufus, not being player controlled, does indeed have a massive downgrade of not being able to use or equip any items besides Scarfs, sometimes missing on his own and his stats leave a lot to be desired. You specifically need to find Dog Treats for him to make up in the stats department and until late game, he really just feels like a 5th wheel. However, not only can he cheat death with 1 HP, is crazy with Evasion Ups, can take a hit for the Ally, sometimes plural making the dog clone itself, which works with Defence Ups, The only usable skill he gets is Foliage, but like I’ve said, it’s abusable and yeah, at the end of the game, with enough money you can just buy any of the 3 dog treats and as much as you want, obviously, you want to turn Rufus into the tank and place him first in the Order. Before Then I can remember the following dog treats:

-One from the chest in church below Pleasant
-One from the kid and the dog in Santonio, might require rescuing the dog or something like that
-One is a hidden bone pile behind a cactus next to a corrupted church in the overworld; a dog in Outlaw City mentions it.
-One is in the well of Ruined Dream Town/Le Something but not after visiting the Hotel.
-In the dog bowl in Lily O’Mule’s house.
-There’s the Defence Dog Treat in one of the chests in the final dungeon, but by then you can just buy them. Only mentioning it because it’s fresh in my memory.

-Anne is a bit more straightforward. She can dual wield pistols allowing her to hit up to 8 times per turn! The downside being, until level 30, she literally only has Pistol specialisation at level 1, meaning even with Attack Up or Focused status, she might deal 1 damage per hit to certain enemies until then. Thankfully, she has other uses. 2Step and Waltz are good party wide healing options, Tango is a party wide evasion up and she has unique interaction with her former boss in Outlaw City, literally allowing her to beat said boss and learn Cha Cha, party wide Attack Up. And sadly, the best pistol in the game isn’t buyable, but is in the chest in the final floor of the penultimate dungeon. So I had to choose if I wanted her to have all these stronger extra hits or should I give the gun to Doc. I didn’t regret picking her, but I know some people did because she straight up requires support like Umbra to prep her for bosses.

-I haven’t beaten the game with Bull, Maria, Lee and Pearl, but here’s the info and tips regarding them from other folks and seeing more footage, Bull is probably even better recommendation than Doc, barely any if no usable skills, but can hold any standard weapon and actually gets Pistol2 at reasonable levels.

-Lee being inspired by Blue Mages from FF can study skills from certain enemies, so far I know of the following:
-Mine from Alp enemy, let’s mine sparkling spots in the dungeons and in Cactus Temple (you do get ability to teach anyone Mine from the Dream Town, but it’s after middle point of the game)
-Pilfer from Robber enemy, has chance to steal item or money from enemy. Maria also has it from the start, barely ever works, not even on Bouncing Beans and Mooncats (Metal Slimes of this game).
-Leech from Bat enemy, like in Umbra’s case, is very useful.
-Multi Hit from Knocker, skill that attacks all enemies, for useful.
-Strike from either Rattler or Centipede, a single-target attack that I think ignores defence?
-Harden from Forsakened spawned in Black Prison, buff’s Lee defence, incredibly useful.
-Berserk from Implings, Attack Up for Lee, but makes him uncontrollable
-Break from Bisonman/BisonLord (first spawns near Outlaw City, second spawns in Cactus Temple) that stuns enemies for at least one turn, heavy SP cost.
-Conceal from Bouncing Bean/Mooncat, raises Lee’s Evasion, really hard to get unless you’ve Lasso’d or Squeezed them because these two will try to flee.
-You can also talk to the dude in the hotel's second floor in Heston to unlock a Survivor1 skill, just like the one Rufus has and eventually gets Dual Wielding… which was the sole reason why I recommended Anne. So yeah, I probably would’ve taken Lee over Anne/Rufus on my first playthrough.
-Maria gets outclassed not just by Bull, but also by Lee, because the only usable skill she has for the majority of playthrough is Pilfer. She gets Execute that is supposed to be OHKO, but it will almost always whiff, even against non bosses. Her stats are alright and she can be used as a tank during early game and then she can later outdamage Bull. She has unique interaction where if you go to Outlaw Town, talk to NPCs there she can skip the Black Betty boss fight to a mirror needed for corrupted church and she can also buy Coffee from said Betty, making it the only source of said item (that restores max SP) unless you have Forage for it in the Cactus Temple. Also she’s a cool reference to Rail Heist.
-Pearl… exists. Also learns Pistol2 reasonably soon and with Shotgun3 she becomes probably the only character for whom Shotguns are viable. I literally don’t think Bribe has much use.

Now you have your team! You might’ve realised, even with all of this knowledge, this game is hard and a battle for attrition. It’s not a typical RPG where if you just follow the plot, you’ll be overleveled, you’ll be given tons of resources. Nah, this game hates you, but being cautious will make the experience better than you’d expect. Like there’s a bossfight early where the game hints you need a Prickly Pear to make the fight easier… I did it without it by accident. Literally whenever you feel like you’ve used your resources and you’re after a hard fight, go rest. I’ve realised it a bit too late, but not just Salt is your friend, but Bedrolls don’t just restore your HP and a bit of SP, they get rid of enemies already on the map as well. Sending your money, or teeth, to a bank in Santonio or Lawbuck is also good because of the 2% interest and because if you die, either lose all of it if it’s below 1k or half of it, each time. Sadly the amount in bank caps at 100.000 teeth, you can hold more than that. The mounts you can rent, you can mount from Menu when on the overworld. They ignore the difficult terrain’s HP cost and allow you to pretty much outspeed and ignore enemy encounters. You cannot ride the train fast when you’ve already rented them, except for when you finally get your own ‘special horses’, but that won’t be until the end of the journey. The rented horses will return to the stable of any town you enter, however some places aren’t seen as towns when you first enter them, such as the Fort when it’s being attacked by demons. Now, if you’re still watching or reading through this, there might be times where you just feel… stuck when playing Grimstone and I was too. Let’s start with probably the second biggest filter of this game (after getting used to initial difficulty) and that is the Detonator and Lava Worm arc.

The moment you get to the 4th town, you have several options. It’s most recommended to take care of the fort to the left of the town. After that battle and took a rest. You need to venture to the bottom part of the region until you reach Outlaw Town as I've mentioned. Everything will seem costly there even if you brought teeth from the bank, but don’t worry, interacting with the star on the roof of the abandoned sheriff’s office will net you enough to at least rest there and maybe buy a firearm. Your next objective is Betty, hidden in the mountains to the west south of said Town. After this pretty tough boss fight you’re supposed to return to the Town for mirror, with the mirror, go to the church north of the town. After finding the key in a completely unsuspicious area and on the skeleton…. You have to go back to the cave where Betty was (maybe stopping in for a rest in town as an extra precaution). The bandit cave’s got me a few times, but there’s a town nearby… or is it? You can technically sleep there for free, but it doesn’t have a church so I hope you have someone with Revive/Holywater and also… don’t restart or quit the game here, you’ll be sent back to Outlaw Town. The only other important thing is that for a price you can teach mining to certain party members. I've taught it to Doc, but I’ve never used it, I’m guessing it’d be best on Bull, Lee will know it from studying long before that. The next dungeon, being another mine, should be easy enough, you finally get the detonator at the end there. If you don’t want to waste time, get yourself killed and you’ll be transported either to Outlaw City or 4th town (if you got horses from there at least).

Okay. that seemed like the worst part, it wasn’t. First, get yourself prepared, especially with Salt, Holywater, Bed Rolls, anything that restores SP and Lassos. The canyon needed the detonator for hosts not only more treasure but also a unique enemy, Thunderbird. Defeating it, earns you a Scale, which you can bring to the sheriff in Santonio that gives you a Scarf that gives a lot of Resistance to statuses, which will be helpful since enemies will start using Poison liberally and pretty soon. Now, restock for the next venture, especially with mounts and past the Thunderbird canyon you’re in an area with 3 holes.

DO NOT GO TO THE RIGHT OR MIDDLE ONE. Yes, you can find the snake tutor for Umbra and some loot in the said holes, but enemies there are somehow much stronger than the upcoming boss and there’s a devilish path where an enemy event happens on every step you take.  The hole to the left will eventually take you to the intersection between the hole with the lava path and the hole that will take you to Lily O’Mule’s (the one who wanted to recruit the protagonists) house. This house offers a free Hotel of sorts (but it’s not a church so you can’t revive or save/load game from here and also you get the Horn from the Grandpa, you’re supposed to use it on the Lava pool to summon monsters. Now, the boss itself isn't hard, in fact, it’s easier than normal enemies in the area. But once you leave a hole with the lava, it’s going to get flooded by lava again and you can’t get another horn. This is the most dreadful part of Lava arc, because you can get softlocked here apparently if you don’t visit Lawbuck, on the north from the exit. Bring either Salt, Bed rolls, anything and make sure no enemies will get close to wiping your party, flee if needed, the Death cannons can be killed before they get a chance to fire their OHKO shots. Only after you get to Lawbuck, you’re pretty much set for the rest of the game.

You can finally return to 4th town via Train, buy better firearm or save money in the bank without having to go to Santonio and also on the south there’s the Cactus Temple I’ve mentioned few times, not only enemies there are a great source of income and XP, there’s also that random Forage/Mining spot that will earn you anything, from Feathers that TP you to last visited town’s church and topaz gems that can sell for a lot, HolyWaters, Antidotes, minor HP/SP recovery items, Coffee which restores max HP, Ointments which are better Bandages and Salt. From consumables/non-equippable items it only can’t give you Rubies, Ores, Silver, Abyssidian (all 4 you need to mine for or acquire differently), Bed Rolls or Bandages/Medkit (you can buy them in Lawbuck anyways). The Cactus Temple boss should be easy enough, just make sure you have at least a spare Antidote for afterwards. If you have an Umbra (you should) white wolf that can teach, Crush appears on the right from the monolith and for the next dungeon past the monolith, I recommend stocking up on as much Coffee, Bed Rolls, Salt and Holywater as possible. If you have Umbra with Camo, you can skip the Salt and just focus on Coffee and maybe bring a single Feather in case you’ve got to like the 2nd or 3rd floor of the tower while also checking every chest. After defeating all 4 riders of the apocalypse, you’re free to ride wherever you want and Bedrolls become useless.

There’s an extra final town on the bottom right corner of the map, with weirdly welcoming demons and a lot of items my special needs team couldn’t equip. To the left off the church from beginning of the game you can find a demon blacksmith that’ll make you the Calamity Rifle, either from mined or bought Abyssidian and the right of said church is a church that sells dog treats and gives you hammer of God so you can reach final dungeon. Once again, restock your items from Cactus Temple, maybe check other places and chests you’ve missed (no shame in that, especially since a lot of them are trolls) and go to Grimstone Citadel. Exploring this place should roughly take you three to four visits, you can technically speedrun it by going to the right section, going to the second floor there, then exploring all the way to the left, which will bring you behind the gate and before Malus, BUT I DON’T RECOMMEND IT because to turn off the gate, you need to interact with every orb in this place and unless you can defeat both Malus and harder boss behind him, you’ll need backtrack all over again.

Nah, start exploring Grimstone from the left, where there should be one interactable orb on the bottom of the second floor, then after restocking check the rightmost side including the second floor from there, still hanging on the right side. If you feel daring and you have enough resources, you can continue to the path to the Malus, but I recommend you to heal up the team before interacting with any orb you see. A Deathbison with OHKO move will jump out before interacting with one of them, raising Evasion or having Lee/Rufus on top so they can cheat death is a good idea. If you’ve interacted with every orb, once you reach the gate from the other side and interact with the orbs behind it, you can now safely go back to restock and heal before the next two encounters. I won’t spoil the final boss, but obviously your tactic should first be to buff up your team, then take care of it’s ally, so it can only be offensive instead of healing and buffing and then lower its offence and just make sure none of your allies are in range of being one shot (it dealt like 200 HP per turn to allies with Defence Up and 30 base Defence).

As of right now I have no clue what the cherry requirement is for the game. I’m guessing either opening every chest, which I have made sure I did, beating the game under a certain level cap or what, but I’ve enjoyed it. And hope you did too. It kind of made me nostalgic for all these older RPGs like Chrono Trigger, Earthbound or first Baldur’s Gate, with heavy reliance on building your team, resource management, actually writing and memorising important info instead of just looking them up on the internet. but also it just shows that people who made this collection truly did their homework. Maybe I didn’t exactly love the tedium of the middle of this game, but if I’d like a fully fledged standalone sequel to any of the games in the UFO 50 collection, it would’ve probably been Grimstone 2… after Avianos 2. For now, I’m giving it an A-.