Last month I wrote that it might take me a decade to fully play through UFO 50, Mossmouth’s brilliant compilation of brand new games inspired by the games industry of the ‘80s. I’m still thinking that timeline’s accurate; I’ve dumped hours into Grimstone, a Final Fantasy-ish RPG set in an Old West trapped in Hell, over the last week, and I have no idea if I’m anywhere near the end. The main reason it might take me a good 10 years to search every nook and cranny of this thing, though, can be summed up in two words: Party House. I simply can’t stop playing it. Maybe I’d be done with Grimstone by now if I didn’t have to play Party House for a round (for 10) every time I open UFO 50.
Party House is so good, and has so much potential to hook people who don’t play PC games made by independent studios, that Mossmouth really needs to hunker down and build it out into its own standalone game. Party House isn’t the only game in UFO 50 that could use a separate expanded release, but it’s the most deserving, and the one most likely to be a smash hit outside of UFO 50’s current audience—especially if it’s ever released on iPhones or Android devices.
The key to Party House’s appeal is that it’s a cute and simple strategy game that’s very hard to beat, but easy to almost beat. It has a built-in countdown by basically giving players 25 rounds to complete their main goal, and they’ll make steady progress each round unless they get too greedy. It’s essentially a deck-building game with a good deal of randomness involved, but players also have almost total control over what units (or party guests) are in their deck, as well as how they spend the resources they gain each round, so there’s also lots of room for player agency. Every time a player screws up a round it’s directly because of their own decisions, but the randomness of the draw can be deeply frustrating and tempt players into bad choices. And although it only has five official scenarios to complete (each one consisting of a single party), it has a randomized mode that can churn out new rounds indefinitely.
That’s an incredibly dry way to describe this charming game, but it does get to the nuts and bolts of the game design. That’s a major part of its broad appeal, of course, but just as important is how it goes out of its way to welcome players of all kinds to this party. It avoids the kind of off-putting terminology and presentation that can intimidate somebody who isn’t a deep-in-the-weeds game fan. It doesn’t call itself a deck-builder, it doesn’t explain itself in the dully academic terms I used above, it doesn’t want to solely target the niche of “gamers” that grew increasingly insular and obtuse as the ‘90s crept into the 21st century; all it wants to do is party.
Party House is about throwing the perfect party. If there are too many trouble-makers at one time, the party gets busted by the cops. If there are more guests than the house can fit, the fire marshall shows up and shuts it down. If the player isn’t able to throw the perfect shindig within 25 parties, the game ends—probably because the player is broke from throwing so many damn parties.
A perfect party requires having four “starred” guests in the player’s house on the same day. Guests arrive one at a time at the house’s front door, and the player won’t know what kind of guest they are until they’ve already been welcomed into the house. That house initially only fits five guests, and a player’s rolodex starts with the same 10 guests in every scenario: four “old friends” who score one popularity point apiece; two “pals” who score a dollar each but no popularity points; and four “wild buddies,” who score two popularity points, but also bring one bit of trouble into the house. The game randomly cycles through the friends in that rolodex, coming in one at a time until the house is full or until the player decides to end the party. If three trouble-makers show up on the same day, the party’s over, and all popularity points or dollars from that round are forfeited. The popularity points are used to “buy” new friends who then enter the deck and can show up at future parties, whereas dollars are used to increase the size of the house, expanding it by one new friend at a time.
Every game has 15 types of guests that can be entered into the rolodex, each one with their own attributes. A rock star nets three popularity points and two dollars, but is also a trouble-maker. A stand-up comic costs a dollar but is worth four popularity points—as long as they perform to a full house. Auctioneers bring three dollars, pro wrestlers (who look suspiciously like the Ultimate Warrior) earn two popularity points and the ability to kick any one guest out, and certain peacemaker units like cute dogs and hippies will bring in popularity points and also counteract one troublemaker apiece. Players need to create a well-balanced group of friends that will bring in both popularity points and dollars with every party, but without too great a risk of trouble.
That’s the game’s engine: throwing parties, acquiring popularity points to add better or higher-scoring friends to the rolodex, earning dollars to expand the house so more guests can come to each party and contribute more popularity points and dollars, and then using popularity to buy four super-expensive “starred” friends and trying to get them all in the same party at the same time. Once a player gets the hang of this they can crank through games, sizing up the best move in seconds and rushing to get those “starred” friends in play so they can throw that perfect party.
Again, though: that’s really hard to do. Even if a player has four or more “starred” friends in their deck, there’s no guarantee four will show up at the same party. There are units that can make it a little easier—one type of friend can swap any guest out for any in the rolodex, whereas another will specifically bring a starred friend to the door. And because Party House makes it just easy enough to get four starred friends in the rolodex with a handful of those 25 days left, players will always feel like they had a shot at winning a round—if only they had a luckier draw, or if only they hadn’t gotten greedy and brought in a new guest after already having two troublemakers in the house. (Parties getting broken up is the worst.)
Oh, and did I say this is all adorable, and custom designed to appeal to general ‘80s nostalgia? Every character is depicted as a cartoon-style sprite, and other than the basic old friends, they’re all cute, silly little riffs on whatever archetype they represent. Stereotypical hippies, big haired ‘80s rock stars, dancers who look like they stepped right out of MTV, trouble-making monkeys worth a lot of popularity points… the characters in Party House are fun to look at even after hours of play. And the starred friends are almost all impossible creatures, like angry T-rexes, majestic unicorns, or goofy genies and leprechauns. Their outfits are usually right out of the ‘80s, and the title screen has the colorful, geometric shape-filled vibe of a late ‘80s junk food ad for kids; if it was bigger on neon pinks and yellows it would totally feel like that Saved by the Bell design scheme, instead of only mostly feeling like that.
All of this is why Party House would be perfect as a standalone game, especially one available on smartphones. My wife, who would never play a game on PC other than solitaire and who would be utterly perplexed and intimidated by the Steam Deck (where I’ve mostly been playing UFO 50), is fascinated by Party House. With its simple rules, cartoon-cute characters, and an everyday setting everybody can relate to, it’s the kind of game she’d play on her phone for months, a little bit each day. And even though I’ve had no problem playing the randomized scenarios for several hours after otherwise “beating” the game, those merely shuffle through the same types of guests introduced in the five main scenarios. I’d love to see a bigger version of Party House with more scenarios and more characters. Everything else could (and should) stay the same—the same structure, the same rules, the same graphics—only with more variety. As amazing as UFO 50 is—and it’s something I’ll recommend to everybody I know who’s old enough to have played games in the ‘80s, and to anybody younger who has an interest in retro games or gaming history—Party House is too genius to stay locked up inside of it. Like a DJ night that has outgrown the bar it originally started in, this party needs to move to a bigger venue. Let’s get it done, Mossmouth.
Senior editor Garrett Martin writes about videogames, comedy, travel, theme parks, wrestling, and more. He’s also on Twitter @grmartin.
