Universe (Amiga CD32) - Part 1

Developer:

Core Design

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Release Date:

1994

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Systems:

Amiga, CD32, MS-DOS

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Universe, by the makers of Rick Dangerous, Curse of Enchantia and later Tomb Raider. But Curse of Enchantia is the most relevant, seeing as this is a point-and-click adventure game.

Universe got fantastic scores from magazines back in the day, lots of 90s and high 80s... well, except for Amiga Power and Amiga Format, they both totally trashed it. Amiga Power gave it 21%! I've played the demo before so I have an idea of what my opinion's going to be, but I'll see if it changes as I get further into the story.

I should give you a SPOILER WARNING, as I'm going to be playing through a lot of the game. In fact, I'm going to try to finish it, though I'll try not to give the whole thing away. I'd suggest YouTube if you want to see the ending, I'm just showing off things that catch my interest and whining about the things that annoy me.

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I've started to notice lately how many game intros tell their story with the help of an illustrated book. There's often a bit of talking to go along with them as well, though not this time. Even the CD32 version is missing voices, so I'm having to actually read the book myself.

"So there I was, adding some frames to my top computer animation which I'd knocked up on my recently acquired 35-bit Excellence Engine, when Mom shouted up. She wanted me to take some mail over to Uncle George's. She probably just wanted some way to get me out of the house and off that "*&!!#@!! computer" as she loved to call it. Ah, mother. She had such a pleasant command of the English language..."

Alright, so far I've learned that Boris does animation, he has a pretty epic CRT monitor on his desk, and he says things like "Ah, mother." Why 35-bit though? I guess it's supposed to sound like the game takes place the day after tomorrow, but back then the day after tomorrow featured 64-bit technology.

Boris takes his bike through town to his uncle's house, slipping in the snow a few times and falling off at least twice.

"The torrent of abuse I had to endure due to several near misses still scars my psyche to this very day."

I wonder how old Narrator Boris is. He sounds like an old man who never quite got over being yelled at in the street one time when he was 15. Anyway, he went and sat in his uncle's mysterious egg and then started pressing buttons on it until it teleported him into space. So it's a bit like the start of Another World, except this time the protagonist is a complete idiot.

Hang on, why isn't Boris narrating the story anymore? The game's talking to me like I'm Boris. I don't want to be Boris! I'm glad that they explained the air though, as I would've been wondering about that.

You can't really tell with that text box in the way, but I'm on a small asteroid in front of an alien city. Unfortunately, the path to it is broken, so I can't get up there.

One thing this game has in common with Curse of Enchantia is that it looks fantastic for its time. It looks like they've gone with scanned illustrations for its backgrounds, like Monkey Island 2 and Beneath a Steel Sky, and a lot of the detail survived the process. It definitely looks better than it would've done if they'd tried pre-rendering the backgrounds in 3D.

Another thing the game has in common with Curse of Enchantia is that nightmare of an interface down there. Though this at least tells me what the buttons do when I point the mouse at them, so I don't have to make any theories about what's going on in that last image on the right. Plus I've only got the seven options this time.

There's another eight verbs hidden behind those seven, as they've apparently learned nothing from Curse of Enchantia.

These icons are 'insert', 'push/pull'. 'jump', 'wear', 'throw', 'combine', 'open/close' and 'eat/drink', so all those commands are always two button-presses away. This is a bit awkward for me as I'm playing using a CD32 controller, dragging the cursor around with a D-pad.

When I put all my icons away it gives me direct control of the character, which definitely doesn't happen in the mouse-driven computer versions. Honestly, it kind of works though. I was all set to explain why adventure games are a terrible fit for consoles but the CD32 game's been fine so far.

I couldn't go up into the city so I decided to go left, fell onto another asteroid, and now this is my life. It takes four screens to make a complete lap of this asteroid I've landed on so I'm guessing it's basically a six-sided cube, but who even knows? My location gets kind of vague when the asteroid complex is out of sight.

I'm being as thorough as I can because I don't want to miss any crucial items. The game's a bit awkward though, as it doesn't tell you what the blob of pixels you just picked up actually was. You have to check what's appeared in your inventory afterwards. So far I've found two rocks and a metal bar and for all I know there might be a puzzle later on that needs three rocks, so I'm still looking.

The movement is a little more fluid in-game than it is in this GIF by the way; I cut the framerate to match the frames in the walk cycle to get the filesize down. I also cut the music entirely, because it's just tuneless droning spacey sci-fi ambience, and GIFs can't have music anyway.

Amiga 500 version

Here's the low-colour Amiga 500 version so you can compare the two. The CD32's AGA chipset can put a lot more colours on screen than the puny A500 could ever manage, so there's a real difference between the three versions. Presumably. Actually, to be honest I'm struggling to tell them apart.

Yeah, I just compared the two versions in Photoshop and aside from the 'jump' and 'eat/drink' icons switching places they're basically identical. What the hell kind of magic is this? Where'd all these forbidden colours come from?

Okay, I've done a bit of research and it turns out that the game's using a bit of a loophole in the rules of the hardware. The old Amiga 500 can only output 64 colours at once (32 of them being darker shades of the other 32), but 'at once' for a computer can mean 'per scanline' not 'per screen'. So the game updates the palette 200+ times for every screen! Super Pre-Adjusted Colour (SPAC) it's called.

Anyway, I'm done with this asteroid and want to get back up there to the pipe, so I'm going to need to do a low-gravity super jump. The trouble is that the pipe is just a little too far to reach... in one leap anyway.

Well, I got the first bit of the plan right, but I was a bit slow to jump off onto the pipe. This tiny asteroid orbits the bigger one so all I have to do now is wait for it to come back around to this screen. Shouldn't take more than... a minute. This game does not respect the player's time.

It's actually very possible to screw up the timing or positioning and miss landing on this mini-asteroid, so that's another minute to wait for it to come back around. Though the game does at least pause when you're down in the icons selecting a command, so it's not that hard to time it right.

Okay, I am back up here on the starting screen again and this time I've got some junk to play around with. I won't pretend that I was able to spot this tiny panel and then work out that I had to 'insert' the metal bar into it to pry it open, I dragged that fact out of my memory of the demo. I've no bloody clue what I'm supposed to do next now that the panel's open though.

I've been using every item on the mysterious device one after another, but nothing's working. I wish I could just look in there and see what's inside. It's like I'm doing PC repair on an alien computer with a bag full of rocks, wearing a blindfold. The game could at least give me a hint about what the problem is.

Amiga 500 version

Examining the contents of my inventory isn't giving me any clues.

I finally gave up and checked a walkthrough. It turns out that I'm supposed to insert the circuit board. Somehow it didn't occur to me to try that even though I just inserted a metal rod into the thing. It would've been cool if Boris had mentioned that there was a missing board, or a damaged board, or given me some hint that this was needed.

Oops, I accidentally electrocuted Boris and gave him brain damage. Now he can understand the alien symbols on the screen! Or at least he believes he can.

I think this is about as far as I got when I played around with the demo because I have no memory of what comes next. I suppose I have to use the alien terminal to connect up the pipe that leads up to the city.

Alright, I've got four options to pick.

I tried linking up the terminal point to something else and now the screen says "TERMINAL POINT A/1Y". I'm not sure that helped much.

The 'Connect channel' option gives me a list of six places. Clicking on them brings up a message saying "SERVICE CHANNEL OPENED". Same deal with the 'Set filtration system' option.

I had a bit more luck with the 'Information pool' option, as it told me that this is a communications relay station colonized by settlers offering services to travellers, and it has an artificially converted atmosphere along with flux-generated gravity. I'm a big fan of air and gravity, and also of sci-fi stories that acknowledge that they're necessary.

Aha! It turns out that I just had to connect the channel to the first option in the list it gave me and that connected up the pipe to the city!

Sorry about the jerky mouse cursor movements, I'm moving it with a D-pad. Also, I edited out some of the computer's cursor flicker because it was annoying me. Alright, time to visit the alien city!

The alien city sucks.

You could generally split adventure games of the time into two groups: those that followed the Sierra philosophy of game design and those that followed the LucasArts philosophy. Now I know this is definitely a Sierra-style. It doesn't just kill you off, it mocks you afterwards.

Also, I didn't read the description of the guns because I haven't been clicking the examine button on every bit of sci-fi scenery! The game doesn't let you know when your cursor is pointing at something of interest so it's hard to know what can be interacted with. Especially as everything's integrated into the backgrounds so well. At least you only have to select the 'Look' command once each time you want to click everything on the screen, as it doesn't turn off until you're done.

On the plus side, I've gotten to see the game over screen. Which is also the cover art.

I can't turn the game off until I've gotten the jacket and the car. (I've already gotten him electrocuted and given him brain powers).

This time I went up to the other building and 'Use'd the panel next to the door.

I had a bit of a chat with one of the locals, but she wasn't interested in letting a complete stranger speaking a weird language inside her house. It appears that Boris' magic brain damage only lets him understand the language, not speak it.

Hey, I found the car from the game over screen! I tried 'Jump'ing in but got hit by the anti-theft security system. Then three security robots turned up to shoot bullets down the screen and encourage me to piss off. I tried running around behind them to see if I could leave via the street they came from, but no luck.

Well I'm stuck. There's not much else to do here in town so I'm going to have to check a walkthrough. Okay, I don't have to. But I'm going to.

Ah! All I had to do was to use the terminal from the start to deactivate the filtration system on the Gavric Homeworld, then 'Push' into one of the vents in the city and get flushed down to that asteroid again. The one you can run around. There's no way I could've known about this, but there was a mirror inside and it got dislodged when I fell through.

I think I can figure this out from here. I just have to wait a minute for the tiny asteroid to orbit back to the start so I can use it to jump back up to the pipe again.

Yes, we know that you can understand alien languages, Boris! It's very impressive, now shut up about it.

I worked out all by myself that I was supposed to 'Use' the mirror on the lasers to reflect the beam back... but it didn't work. So I tried wearing it like a shield. Didn't work. I eventually just looked it up again because I've got better things to do than play 'guess the verb'. It turns out the one it wanted was 'Throw'.

Sorting out the security system got the attention of the building's occupant... who doesn't want to talk to me either. He told me to go bother Silphinaa, but I don't know who that is! I suppose I should try that other door again as there's no one else around I can talk to.

Awesome, knowing her name got me through the door! Now I finally have some dialogue options to choose from, which is something Curse of Enchantia didn't have if I recall. Still no voices though.

Silphinaa claims that Boris is speaking in an ancient language called Erdic, which is interesting. It seems like he might have jumped to the future, though I dunno if that's occurred to him yet. She explains that the Pfallenop asteroid cluster used to be welcoming to travellers, but the Imperial Prefectorate has really clamped down on them, so if he gets caught here without ID he's going to prison. He needs to get to Wheelworld and find her friend Malinaa.

Just then Boris' brain powers activate again and he senses a security robot at the door. Silphinaa tells him to get upstairs quickly!

What the... why would anyone put a keycode lock on the door to their stairs? I tried 00451 and 12345, but no luck. There are 100,000 possible combinations so I'm not going to be able to work this one out through trial and error.

Alright, what else can I do? I know, I could pick up that pan on the stove and throw the boiling contents over the security robot to short it out! Nope, he won't pick it up. Damn, I need to think, think... hey I just realised that I'm looking at a cross-section of the room, so I can see into the cupboards from the side. That's pretty cool. Can't open them though.

The robot hit the door so hard that Silphinaa went flying! Now I really need to get out of here.

USE BENT METAL BAR WITH KEYPAD... nope.

INSERT BENT METAL BAR INTO KEYPAD... nope.

You know what I could use? An actual hint when I do something wrong that gives me a chance of figuring out what I should be doing instead.

Walkthrough, help me out here!

Walkthrough, you betrayed me!

Man, it's not great when I need a walkthrough to get me past 80% of the game's puzzles and even when I do what it says I still lose. Also, the other 20% of puzzles were things I remembered how to do from playing the demo; I haven't worked out anything by myself so far.

Wait, let's see that game over screen again for a second. He's called Boris Verne? I wonder if he's any relation to sci-fi author Jules Verne.

MEANWHILE, ON THE PC VERSION

Alright, I'm switching over to the DOS version for a bit, because I want to compare the graphics and also I miss having a mouse. Though it turns out that the game might actually be easier to control with a D-pad, because Boris struggles with walking from point A to point B on his own. Dude gets turned around and stuck on walls. One time he even walked outside the path and got trapped.

Anyway, I got the door open, went upstairs, opened the wardrobe and found Boris's costume from the game over screen! I've got the jacket. Trouble is I'm somehow stuck again. I've tried to 'Use' the window shutters, 'Open' the window shutters, 'Push; the window shutters, 'Attack' the shutters. In the end, the robot outside got bored waiting and came up to take Boris to prison.

I'm not even sure why I'm trying to figure this out for myself, as the game's obviously designed for people with more patience than I have. Okay, checking the walkthrough again...

Oh, I had to use the computer built into the suit's arm on the console above the bed. How the fuck was I supposed to know that? I mean he mentions the computer, I was aware of it, but it mentioned nothing about the shutters being controlled by the console, or that I needed to use the suit on the console to make it work. It just says "You can't use that," or "Looks like a sub console".

Hey, I'm back in the alley with the car from the game over screen. I wonder if that's Silphinaa's car. I wonder if I have the key.

I've got the jacket and the car! I'm peak Boris right now.

I started examining the car's dashboard trying to find the ignition, clicking all over the picture, but all I've found so far are monitors.

USE MONITOR - "You can't use that."
USE ARM COMPUTER ON MONITOR - "You can't use that."
TALK TO COMPUTER - "There's no reply."

Hang on, I just need to step out of the room for a moment and scream.

Alright, the walkthrough says I need to insert my keycard into the slot on the left. What slot? The whole dashboard is nothing but slots and monitors! Then once that's done I need to use the keypad on the right to type in the code from the manual. You know what they could've put in the manual: a guide on where any of these things are!

Oh hang on, Boris' brain powers are kicking in again. Now he's getting a vision of a cutscene happening across the galaxy. Seriously, he's seeing all this.

The dude on the throne-like mound tells Baron Kaleev down there that the Supreme Cognitor has identified the presence of an alien to their universe who could be dangerous. They must not allow the Healers' legend to unfold! Great, Boris knows he's the chosen one of prophecy; now he's going to be even more insufferable.

I'm not finished with interruptions yet though, as he's also got a call coming in from a transport ship.

Hey, I remember seeing this art somewhere. That actually looks pretty great, considering they had 256 colours max on screen.

He's Snorglat of the trading vessel Darfugh and he's worried that Boris might be a pirate. Even though he's obviously just a dude in a tiny car. Boris needs to get to Wheelworld and find Silphinaa's friend Malinaa, and Snorglat's willing to give him the location, in exchange for something of value. So now I have a new mission: find something worth trading.

Step one, figure out how to navigate my car.

I don't like how it takes forever to get the navigation menu up. Well okay, it takes literally two seconds, but it feels longer when I'm watching the text get typed on screen. And every one of those steps on screen has to be done separately, including the bit where I bring up the command to 'Use' the monitor in the first place.

This is interesting though. It seems my car comes with a starmap, so I can click on any of those dots and go pay that world a visit. Also, those arrows make me think that the map scrolls. I should stitch an image together of the whole thing if it's going to make me view it through such a tiny window.

Holy crap that's a lot of dots. I didn't expect this to go all Mass Effect like this at all.

I've got to search all this for something of value? Why couldn't Silphinaa have her friend Malinaa's location in her car's navigation computer, it would've saved me so much trouble. Oh, it turns out that I'm limited to just the planets next to the asteroid city, as the car's only got so much range. So ignore all those other dots for now.

It's funny, every time I write about a game like this I assume that I'll be able to write about it in one article, but then I just have to add one more GIF and before I know it I'm sailing right past my self-inflicted picture limit. So I'll let you read what I've done so far while I get to work writing the second half.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO

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No prizes for guessing what's coming next, but you can leave a comment about what you've read about today. Maybe you've played Universe before and have your own opinions on it.