When Derek Yu, the creator of Spelunky, joined forces with a team of brilliant designers to release a collection of 50 games (yes, 50 video games!), I initially assumed that the outcome would be quite straightforward. I anticipated that I would likely lose my job, fail as a father, and perhaps be found years later in an abandoned shack in the forest, surrounded by my own filth and muttering, “You can’t take me away! I still have four more games to complete!”

And yet, here I am, just a day after the release of UFO 50, reading about this massive collection of video games rather than actually playing them. Is this a case of self-preservation? Or perhaps personal growth? Certainly not.

After spending countless hours frantically hopping from one game to the next, I came to the realization that one person simply couldn’t, nay, shouldn’t be responsible for fully appreciating this gargantuan masterwork. Instead, the appreciation of UFO 50 is a team effort. And the UFO 50 subreddit serves as its playing field.

Just like this year’s Animal Well and Yu’s previous Spelunky games, this collection is filled with codes that have yet to be cracked and treasures that remain hidden. Alongside the 50 games, UFO 50 comes with a fictional backstory about a developer named UFO Soft, along with a terminal that allows players to input codes. Exactly how these two elements are connected is what the subreddit aims to uncover.

In a recent episode of Simon Parkin’s My Perfect Console podcast, Yu spoke at length about the magic of mystery. He mentioned how neither The Legend of Zelda nor Dark Souls offered easy answers, inviting players to explore and map their own worlds. Now, along with his childhood friend and fellow designer Jon Perry (along with a host of other creative minds), Yu has passed on this experience to a new generation, one that doesn’t solve the riddles of a video game at home but instead does so on a massive social platform.

I am grateful to this subreddit community for saving me from venturing into the wilderness alone. I will keep my job. I will fulfill my aspirations as a loving parent. And of course, I will play an enormous amount of UFO 50‘s idle game Pilot Quest, while also perusing the threads on the subreddit, where thousands of fellow fans come together to transform 50 games into a unified adventure.