UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects elevates the basic knowledge of the match-three puzzle genre to a higher degree.
Block-matching puzzle games are quite nifty and soothing when it comes to gameplay; they usually employ slower gameplay with lots of time to spare. The premise of the matching-block puzzle genre is simple, a grid full of blocks, diamonds, or whatever you want to have, and you have to swipe, change or alter the structure to match items with the same color.
More items mean more points and maybe a power-up that would turn the upcoming stages into an easier task. Once the blocks are deleted, they either fall from the sky or appear in the empty spaces you just destroyed. Levels usually end when a certain point or goal is reached and you proceed to the next level.
However, in UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects, the gameplay is rather different and peculiar compared to similar games on the market. Unidentified Flying Objects- or UFO for short- has no storyline, and it doesn’t have to have one to begin with; it’s a puzzle game, after all. Our character, a person in a space suit, is tasked with clearing blocks in the grid they get into. The grid is already filled with two lines of different colored blocks.
These blocks cannot be interfered with, well, unless you have a matching block falling from the top of the grid. These falling blocks are not fixed in terms of location, and our character can kick them left or right. It creates a rather well-thought design for choosing where to locate the falling block in order to make a combo. The whole kicking-blocks business becomes a more skill-based move when you realize you can kick blocks when they are falling out of the sky too.
So, you got matching blocks sitting together in a nice batch in the corner, waiting to be turned into smithereens; what do you do? Shoot it, of course. Our character has a gun that deletes through blocks with a few shots. Although you might think destroying one or two blocks in the same color has no benefit, it actually does, but we will talk about that later. The gun is used for destroying the blocks, and it takes different amounts of shots depending on how linked the matching colors are.
For example, if you are destroying a chain of three blocks, it will take around four to five shots. However, if you are planning to destroy a big chain, such as 15 blocks of the same color, you really have to dedicate your time to trying to destroy them because it can take an absurd amount of time.
Meanwhile, this whole destroying the block business might sound easy, but the environment you are in is always in a hazardous condition, and that is when the title of the game is literally dropped to you. The blocks that are falling can drop onto your head directly, and this can ultimately lead to the game being over, though the developer was kind enough to add a two-hit system where the first hit does not kill you right away.
The shield can be replenished by collecting stars that are dropped from destroying blocks. More blocks mean more stars, and once you collect enough stars, you level up, and it replenishes the shield. This creates a monkey paw situation where you get your shield replenished; however, by leveling up, UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects gets harder.
Harder levels are not all about faster-falling blocks or odd-colored blocks causing issues- well, to be fair, those factors also affect the gameplay as well- it is more about the unbreakable, enemy spawning blocks that interfere with your combos and overall pacing. The blocks are made out of metal, and your gun cannot destroy them, so the developer’s idea was to chain the next block that is breakable.
By shooting at the nearest block, the hazardous block gets destroyed, and they also drop stars for your level status too. There are quite hefty amounts of “enemy blocks” to break your plan: Ones that spawn tanks, orbital cannons, rocket spawners, electrified blocks that you cannot kick, and so forth.
While taking a look at the UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects, you can come up with lots of cheese potential. The word “cheese” usually means passing a level without the intended way of playing a game or a level within the game. The developer of the UFO: Unidentified Flying
Objects give you a gun, so why not shoot it all the time to prevent any problems that could be caused by excessive blocks, or just stand on the bottom row and keep shooting, right? Well, they have surely thought of every bit of possible exploit while playing UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects and it shows their dedication to the matter.
Shooting every block you come across sure does help with the star count and point system; the problem is that UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects does not reward you well for it not combo-ing with the matching colors, so you only get the basic point of one, ultimately one star too. This obviously leads to the game being stretched out for an unreasonable amount and drags the gameplay down to a halt.
For staying at the bottom row, it is filled with spikes, and it is just better not to go down there, as you might expect. In short, the ways you can play UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects are linear but not in a way that would become stale.
Talking about blocks in general, along with the hazardous, unbreakable block, there is also a power-up block that helps you with progressing through the levels easier. Power-ups include such as faster shots, double stars, shield, and obstacle destroyer, which is used for destroying unbreakable blocks.
These usually come in handy, so it is better to use them before they sink to the bottom. Power-ups can be changed by shooting at the block, too, so you can turn the game around in the way you want. Did I mention you can have more than one power-up? That means you can turn the game around easily once you get hold of a few power-ups in quick succession.
UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects could have stayed as a stock character, playing through levels that slowly become challenging. However, you can upgrade your character with different movement options or guns that shoot differently. To grab those features, you need to collect gems first. Gems can be collected by destroying 10 blocks or more that are chained together.
Another way to get gems is to do the objectives that a level has to offer. Each level has its own objectives to collect before awarding you with gems and 4D cubes. These objectives can differentiate between getting a certain amount of points, not getting hit for some amount of time, and collecting letters to make a word. Depending on your output during gameplay, these objectives can be either easy or actually demanding.
Let me talk about the advanced techniques in UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects. The block-kicking is actually more versatile than you think it is. Almost everything can be kicked with a button, even if they are in rows of five or six. Obstacles can be kicked despite their sizes and hazardous intention; therefore, you can chain both obstacles and blocks together to get rid of them in a swoop. There are some power-ups that alter the kicking mechanic and would totally help you get better combos, such as the one that lifts the block beneath while kicking.
UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects is good and dandy in terms of a proper puzzle game with great ideas, executed well, but does it actually have some problems that would cause issues? Well, both yes and no. One thing to note in my playthrough was the lack of visibility during explosions and screen shaking.
Grid is sometimes too small to actually make a move and as UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects progresses, the game deliberately throws blocks at the places while you are usually doing your business. Basically, the game is trying to punish you for not being able to move sometimes. A suggestion about this slight oversight would be just adding a proper layout for the character you are controlling so that you do not lose track of it in the ever-so-busy grid.
Although this will not cause any problems for many people, the lack of a soundtrack in UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects is a bit downer. There are songs, yes, but they are all tied to their relative levels, making you listen to a three-minute-long song on a loop until you get all of the objectives done.
It is just better to shut down the background music while trying to achieve all the objectives at a level. The soundtrack itself is quite nice, with 8-bit and techno-style sounds blasting through, but as we said, some variety during levels would have been a better choice instead of playing the same piece over and over again.
In terms of the overall performance of UFO: Unidentified Falling Objects, it is quite a neat take on the puzzle genre. Six different levels, lots of content to unlock, and every level having its own unique take on the challenges are very solid. From controls to movement, the gameplay is never interrupted, with no lag spikes or slowdowns. We wholeheartedly suggest it if you are itching for a puzzle game that has a high skill ceiling and replay value.
