Universe
Universe, point and click adventure developed and published by Core Design in 1994.
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Player's Review
"Take Boris Verne, a uniquely ordinary guy... One minute he's sitting quietly at his 35-bit Excellence Engine home computer. The next he's being transported to another dimension by his eccentric uncle's Virtual Dimension Inducer! Imagine how he feels when he emerges from a rip in the space-time continuum into an unknown dimension... Encounter weird alien worlds and their even weirder alien inhabitants! Guide Boris on an action-packed chase across the gulfs of space to find a fabled lost star. Help him find the key to defeating the evil Golden King who rules his UNIVERSE!"
A point and click adventure following in the style of the Lucasarts games but with the devilishness of the Sierra games which means you can be killed by almost anything in the game if you make the wrong move. Being on CD32, the control is performed with the joypad with no recognition of a mouse plugged in. You move with the dpad and then bring up the ui with a button press if you need to access one of the many functions and a second button is used to select. It's a bit convoluted with functions for push/pull/open/close/insert/ware ect. instead of being able to use a simple 'use' function which is still there for other uses. Like many adventure games, the manual fills in a lot of the lore and backstory so that the game makes some sense with all the stuff it is not showing you.
The game is noted for it's of the rarely used Extra Half-Brite gfx Amiga mode in conjunction with copper effects for producing a near 256 colour image from a 32 colour palette with colours being changed out per scanline. The effect likely looks more pronounce on a crt. It is strange though that no native 256 colour AGA version was made for 1200/CD32 as the artwork was originaly 256c before being processed down to 32. Being 1994 you would think they would target the higher configuration first. The game has very limited sfx making for a very quiet game if it wasn't for some background audio. The CD32 game doesnt make any use of AGA gfx or add voices but does have additional background audio tracks compared to the floppy release. The PC conversion is a little cutdown with just the basic 32 colour images and no special dithering for simulated colour.
The longplay isn't a speedrun, hampered slightly by the controls and aims to show area and dialogue not needed as well as picking up and show items not needed of which there are many making item management a little annoying. I try to capture some of the more interesting death screens but may not have them all.
Overall, an interesting adventure designed first and foremost for the Amiga500 making good use of the limited colour palette. It is quite short when you know what to do but the ui really is the biggest hurdle leading to frustration when you have worked out the solution to the puzzle but you have to work out exactly what function the game wants you to use to apply it. To keep things interesting there is the occasional arcade sequence so make sure to save often as you don't want to lose in them. There's some nice detailed artwork to be found in the more mono scenes like the spaceships and the crawler that stand out in contrast to the more cartoony backgrounds and characters. The game tried to be humorous drawing on tropes from other sci fi influences but can come off as silly and misses the mark. It is possibly most like The Dig in style but should not be directly compared. Simon the Sorcerer and Beneath a Steel sky are much bigger and better adventures to be playing on your CD32 as well as taking advantage of the hardware.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:46 PFallanop Asteroid Cluster
00:42:38 Wheelworld
01:05:52 Arcade - Break-In
01:12:52 Arcade - Invaders
01:15:40 Wheelworld
01:24:26 Liner
01:41:00 Ankarlon 5 / Daarlor Kor /
01:48:43 Haldebar
01:54:29 Ankarlon 5
02:04:16 Coros
02:45:19 Some death scenes
A point and click adventure following in the style of the Lucasarts games but with the devilishness of the Sierra games which means you can be killed by almost anything in the game if you make the wrong move. Being on CD32, the control is performed with the joypad with no recognition of a mouse plugged in. You move with the dpad and then bring up the ui with a button press if you need to access one of the many functions and a second button is used to select. It's a bit convoluted with functions for push/pull/open/close/insert/ware ect. instead of being able to use a simple 'use' function which is still there for other uses. Like many adventure games, the manual fills in a lot of the lore and backstory so that the game makes some sense with all the stuff it is not showing you.
The game is noted for it's of the rarely used Extra Half-Brite gfx Amiga mode in conjunction with copper effects for producing a near 256 colour image from a 32 colour palette with colours being changed out per scanline. The effect likely looks more pronounce on a crt. It is strange though that no native 256 colour AGA version was made for 1200/CD32 as the artwork was originaly 256c before being processed down to 32. Being 1994 you would think they would target the higher configuration first. The game has very limited sfx making for a very quiet game if it wasn't for some background audio. The CD32 game doesnt make any use of AGA gfx or add voices but does have additional background audio tracks compared to the floppy release. The PC conversion is a little cutdown with just the basic 32 colour images and no special dithering for simulated colour.
The longplay isn't a speedrun, hampered slightly by the controls and aims to show area and dialogue not needed as well as picking up and show items not needed of which there are many making item management a little annoying. I try to capture some of the more interesting death screens but may not have them all.
Overall, an interesting adventure designed first and foremost for the Amiga500 making good use of the limited colour palette. It is quite short when you know what to do but the ui really is the biggest hurdle leading to frustration when you have worked out the solution to the puzzle but you have to work out exactly what function the game wants you to use to apply it. To keep things interesting there is the occasional arcade sequence so make sure to save often as you don't want to lose in them. There's some nice detailed artwork to be found in the more mono scenes like the spaceships and the crawler that stand out in contrast to the more cartoony backgrounds and characters. The game tried to be humorous drawing on tropes from other sci fi influences but can come off as silly and misses the mark. It is possibly most like The Dig in style but should not be directly compared. Simon the Sorcerer and Beneath a Steel sky are much bigger and better adventures to be playing on your CD32 as well as taking advantage of the hardware.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:46 PFallanop Asteroid Cluster
00:42:38 Wheelworld
01:05:52 Arcade - Break-In
01:12:52 Arcade - Invaders
01:15:40 Wheelworld
01:24:26 Liner
01:41:00 Ankarlon 5 / Daarlor Kor /
01:48:43 Haldebar
01:54:29 Ankarlon 5
02:04:16 Coros
02:45:19 Some death scenes
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