Fifty Days of UFO 50: Day 47

UFO 50 screenshot of the partially completed gifts menu inside the garden section of the interface. Five rows of pixel art icons are irregularly spaced against a black background with gray dots in the gaps, and the cursor is on "TRAPDOOR (BARBUTA)"

    I seem to recall saying something daft about wondering whether or not I could manage to fill my secret menu garden with gifts, since there's no longer enough time left in the project to do anything ambitious like gold all the cartridges.

Well, time's a-wasting so let's take a look at all the gifts that I have yet to earn:

TO GIVE A 🏠 GIFT...

Campanella 3 (clear the bonus round)

  • Could have sworn I've done this thing with the balloons, so that means what I'm thinking of would be worded something like "survive the bonus round" and what I need to do is shoot more things, better.

Quibble Race (sponsor a quibble that wins a race)

  • I must have originally read this as "bet on a quibble that wins a race," because looking at it now, I don't actually know what sponsoring a quibble is. I was under the impression that one merely bet on them!

CombatAnts (slay a spider)

  • Early spoilers in the menus, jeez! I had no idea there were spiders until I read this requirement just now, ha ha ha!

Elfazar's Hat (earn a continue in the bonus round)

  • I need to get over my silly desire to play through this with a co-op partner and lock in...
  • Reminder to self that the whole multiplayer aspect of this thing remains completely unexplored, so what, if anything, does that mean?

Lords of Diskonia (beat level 5 in the campaign)

  • Doesn't sound tough, though my "restart curse" says I probably need a do-over on this campaign now that I understand the mechanics better.

Grimstone (reach exp level 10)

  • Did someone say RESTART CURSE?! It's been too many days since I touched this save, and I don't remember my logic in drafting a team of all 4 women, (though odds are high that I'll do it again if I can resist bringing the dog along.)

Star Waspir (obtain a 10x multiplier)

  • This was one of the first games I tried, but it's been many days now since I touched it.
  • Now that I roughly know how the dual powerup system works, this is gonna come down to which three letter input sequence between 'E' and 'G' yields a score multiplier output...
    • Shot in the dark, but I'm guessing it's gonna be 'E-G-G'

Valbrace (obtain 8 in any stat)

  • This game seems fascinating, and I just need to get over my lack of spell input knowledge and trepidation in not being able to consistently execute the dodge function...
  • Please oh lord is levelling up a stat going to require I figure out that stat's secret directional glyph?

Fist Hell (survive 9 waves in the gym)

  • Unless the gym is a regular level, there's some sort of training mode that I missed here and should really engage with because my brawler skills are lacking.

Pingolf (get a hole in one)

  • This is surprisingly daunting, in that I would expect the earliest holes I've completed a couple of times to be the ones this is most possible on.
  • Seems like the sort of thing I'm prone to "cheesing" by reloading an initial stage over and over until I get it.

Rock On! Island (reach the second village)

  • Not sure what node that is on the map, but I'm sure getting there will be easy if and when I stop restarting levels that can't be perfect damage-less runs...

Rail Heist (beat level 10)

  • Another victim of my "linear completionism" play habits; I've been trying to clear the time, angel, and demon conditions on each level before moving on, which takes a lot of time and experimentation.

Divers (collect parasite hammer)

  • Interesting... many of these I'm reading for the first time in this investigation, and the word "collect" jumps out at me. Not "buy," implying gear that's findable on a dive.

Hot Foot (win 3 matches)

  • It I can somehow rewire my Bushido Blade dash-toward instinct into a jump-over one, piece of cake

Caramel Caramel (beat the egg)

  • That's gotta be a boss, right?
  • Very funny, enjoying how the requirement doubles as a cooking instruction given the food theme.

Onion Delivery (complete 2 days of deliveries)

  • I feel like I've come close to this, just need more practice driving faster.

Waldorf's Journey (complete 50% of the journey)

  • How long is that initial map come to think of it, and are there others past it?
  • Seems like there would have to be given I recall being more than halfway to a goal that clearly isn't the end of the journey.

Golfaria (obtain the block buster)

  • An ability that breaks blocks? I'm not sure what this is.

Avianos (max out blessings from one ancestor.)

  • This just sounds like a strategy they want you to try, unless the rewards for focusing on a deity slack after filling their devotion grid once?
  • Caught a tiny style guide oopsie: the other garden gift prompts end without punctuation. A stray period!

Kick Club (beat track world)

  • Here's hoping that's simply the world you start in.

Attactics (beat the first 12 levels in the campaign)

  • It's not actually fast! It just feels fast after that epic SLOW-DOWN...

Planet Zoldath (find 1 map part(s))

  • This sounds somewhat easy, but I get the feeling that the RNG is going to provide more resistance than expected...

Velgress (collect 2 keys)

  • Uh oh. Wondering if those show up in the shop or whether I've actually seen a key in here yet.

Mortol (beat level 2-C)

Small UFO 50 key art of an orange cartoon slug named Slard from Pilot Quest. They're next to a brown barrel wearing sunglasses, but not up on their eyestalks like an Earth slug would. On their face above their big puffy lips.
All the other gifts are already in the bag. Even if it doesn't happen within the scope of the blogging project, I'm still looking forward to the sight of a happy little pink pig-dog enjoying all their doodads and furniture.

[Lovely. Now, I know that you know what I said before, but you've only got three days left to finish writing that Mooncat thing, so maybe stop fiddling with the gifts for a bit...]

[<= Day 46] - [Fifty Days of UFO 50]

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