Universe - Have Space Suit - Will Travel

Written by MenhirMike

I made my way back to the Pfallenop cluster and ran into Snorglak again. I could trade the narcotic carvite with him, and he said that we’d need to finalize the trade on Wheelworld. There was a short arcade section where I needed to dock with his docking clamp (not a euphemism), and it took a moment and some bouncing off the clamp for me to realize I needed to press the right mouse button to engage the clamp, and off we went.

I must have hit eighty-eight miles per hour with this baby.

That explains what the excursion was for, and one could argue that the setup was there: We don’t have enough fuel in our PTV to get to Wheelworld from Pfallenop ourselves. We meet a trader with a big ship that wants to trade, but we have nothing to trade for. We are left alone and find something to trade, and we arrange a trade that gets us to Wheelworld. The game doesn’t hand hold us to the solution and lets us figure it out ourselves. That’s great, isn’t it?

Goblins Quest 3 – Mixing potions

By Ilmari

The game’s definitely getting more and more complicated. This time, I faced a three-room level with an intricate puzzle sequence involving alchemy. But let’s start at the beginning. As you might remember from the last time, I was heading to the grocer, who supposedly had another way of transportation for me. Let’s take a look at the surroundings.

Pac-Man 2 - Won!

Written by Michael

Not how my mother taught me to greet others in polite company.

We’ve played through three of the four levels in this game so far.  Perhaps it's time to finish this off?

Is he related to Uncle Pennybags?

After restoring Junior’s guitar, dad sits in his bean bag chair and turns on the television.  Before we discuss his viewing habits, let’s just take a moment to check out this room, now that the rest of the family isn’t blocking our view.  First, inside the house shaped like Pac-Man is a table shaped like Pac-Man.

How many of you have human-shaped tables?  30 bonus CAPs to anyone who sends in a picture of themselves standing next to their family’s human-shaped table. 20 extra CAPs if a computer with the TAG blog is visible in the picture.  (No cheating with AI, please.)

Universe - Time Enough for Love

Written by MenhirMike

As I'm starting this session I notice a slight annoyance: There is no main menu with a quick load option. Universe originally came on 6 floppy disks (plus the save disk) and it only supported one floppy drive. So I need to boot from Disk 1, wait for it to load, insert Disk 2, wait until I'm back on the asteroid to begin the game, go into the disk menu to load, insert my save disk, load the game, and insert the disk I need to be on. Since the game does not support installation on a hard disk, this is mildly inconvenient. This is not a big deal in 2025 since I could play the MS-DOS version, speed up the emulator, use WHDLoad, or do what I did back in the 90s and download an HD Installer that some cracker group made. But I did want to mention it to be period accurate and to give the developers credit: Loading times are pretty decent and disk swapping during gameplay is manageable. Not counting swapping in and out the save game disk of course. Another much bigger annoyance: Pressing the Escape key opens a screen with Restart and Load Game options, but no way back out. So if I press escape in the middle of gameplay I’m stuck on that screen. Another commenter remarked that in the MS-DOS version, the game just dumps you to the DOS prompt. Talk about taking the Escape key a bit too literal.

Back to the plot. We’ve been invited into Silphinaa's home where we learn that Erdic is a very ancient language. There are multiple-choice dialogue options as well. If there is only one choice the game automatically picks it for us. We can ask her where we are, for directions to Ashby, or for a bite to eat. She tells us that the Imperial Prefectorate is clamping down on what used to be a humble asteroid cluster and demand more and more duties to be paid. Her father was taken away by imperial droids and she expects to be taken soon. And as with any good authoritarian regime, the neighbors are happy to sell out anyone for a few credits. Since we have no identification, the droids would also take me in (as I found out earlier when talking to the sentry droid led to a game over). Phew, good that Boris managed to find the one helpful person on this floating space rock!

Ashby-de-la-Zouch is a real place, near the Derbyshire and Staffordshire borders in Leicestershire, which are also real places.

Silphinaa tells us to make our way to the Wheelworld and seek out Malinaa to get safe accommodation. Boris (whose full name is Boris Verne) has another strange reaction and tells her that droids are approaching the door. She tells us to run upstairs, which starts our first timed life or death puzzle. The way upstairs is locked by a door that requires a five digit code. There is one obvious code in the manual, but this is not the time for it yet. Trying to talk to Silphinaa is also fruitless. I can’t find any clue to the code and die to the droids making their way in. There’s some actual game over artwork that is a bit more interesting than the usual death message.

Missed Classic 138: Winter Wonderland (1986)

Written by Michael

The holiday season is all about traditions.  I’m sure many of our readers have rituals involving putting up a tree, or a multi-generation dinner, or the exchange of gifts.  For my family, it’s gathering from all corners of the region to spend slightly too much time together, before we all tire of each other’s company.  But, of course, we enjoy it immensely.

The TAG family has a tradition as well, the yearly Christmas “Missed Classic” of questionable quality; the adventure game equivalent of an ugly Christmas sweater.  We are slightly messing with that tradition this year, because Joe wasn’t able to join us for this year’s installment, but I’m hoping I’ll be a passable substitute.

The title I chose is a bit longer than the ones Joe usually plays; heck, it’s a full-length title for the time, yet priced as a budget title at just £7.95 on cassette.  The title is 1986’s Winter Wonderland, a release from Incentive Software Ltd., a company from the United Kingdom with releases spread over nearly a decade. The game was created using their own home-grown Graphic Adventure Creator, an interpreter they sold and distributed.  Our title today was designed on an early, pre-release copy of the language by two designers, Simon Lipscomb and Tim Walsha.