Fifty Days of UFO 50: Day 29


    I didn't write about it in detail at the time, but I got the cherry in Camouflage a little while back. In hindsight, I should have approached this order of operations puzzler the way I'm currently playing Block Koala, nibbling off a single level every now and then between tasks and other games. Of course, Block Koala has many, many more levels than Camouflage's paltry fifteen.

I enjoyed this one a lot, but for the first time beyond simply not having access to a second player, a UFO 50 game I cherried has left me wanting more. Another fifteen levels of so would have been great, but I recognize that without introducing some new predator types and mechanics, that theoretical back half would probably feel somewhat bloated.

There are enough terrain types to make most one-screen patterns buildable. The only reason for another color like gray would be to have later levels follow the narrative arc a lot of games with natural world theme do; the lizards needing to escape from areas corrupted by human technology, with little robotic enemies! Such a plot twist wouldn't gel with the ending at all, (which I won't spoil here).

    I think I might've actually found Camouflage more satisfying if I could have convinced myself to be less of a completionist initially. It might've been nice to double back and replay a few levels to pick up a missed orb or baby here and there, but I diligently got everything in each level before moving on, as tends to be my custom. I don't move on from a WarpTank capsule before finding the hidden coffee, after all. I'm still looking forward to hunting for mugs of bean juice in Campanella after golding it, but there's probably a version of that initial playthrough where I burn through all my fuel/lives searching each level. Now that I know I'm capable of beating all the stages, I'm likely to feel less frustration even if future runs contain dire coffee runs that result in game overs.

I'll try to keep these tendencies in mind when digging further into titles like Rail Heist and Rock On! Island.

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