Universe - Stranger in a Strange Land

Written by MenhirMike

Having landed on the asteroid and being given some sort of goal to get us going ("try and find a way out of this place"). Let's explore!

The interface is controlled with the left mouse button to walk somewhere and interact with stuff, while the right mouse button brings up a button bar at the bottom. There are icons for "Pick Up", "Options", "Use", "Look", "Talk", "Attack", and "Inventory". The "Options" item opens another menu with additional commands: "Insert", "Push/Pull", "Eat/Drink", "Wear", "Throw", "Combine", "Open/Close", "Jump", and "Info". The "Info" item opens a third menu with "Disk I/O", "Copyright Info", and "Scene Info".

Elegance or Nuisance? Time will tell.

This feels like an attempt to declutter the interface: Important stuff like Pick Up, Use, Look is directly there, while secondary commands are just a click away. But we’re also in the weird transitional phase in adventure gaming between a large amount of verbs and future games with essentially just Use and Look. It will be interesting to see how much the verbs under "Options" get used, because if you have a bunch of verbs you really need to use them in the game design. This has the potential to be also very clunky if most of the game requires an extra click to go through Options all the time.

Reading through the post about the interface in Curse of Enchantia, it seems that Universe is doing it much better: There is actual text so you know what the icons are even if you haven't read the manual. And it's actually a point and click interface: You click on "Pick Up" and then you click on the thing that you want to pick up - no proximity requirements and list of stuff you can interact with. Comparisons with CoE will end here, but right now I'm cautiously optimistic about the technical and usability side of Universe.

One thing that the interface doesn't do is hotspots or a description when hovering over objects in the scene. And since there's no "What is" verb like in older Lucasfilm adventure games, this means a lot of clicking with the "Look" verb to see if there's anything interactable. On the first screen we see a satellite dish with a panel, but we can't interact with it in any way. I make my way south where Boris walks to the end of a walkway and jumps onto another asteroid. Trying to jump back tells us that we can't quite jump there - I guess that's our first puzzle.

The movie White Men Can’t Jump came out in 1992, starring Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson.

The asteroid that we've landed on is 4 screens tall and 5 screens wide, giving us 20 screens to explore. It is a bit confusing at first because the space background looks same-ish, but every screen does have a unique view. I also learned that I can double click to run. There's no instant fast travel between screens, but running at least cuts down a bit on crossing the screen.

I’ve picked up three rocks, an electric circuit board, and a bent metal bar while exploring. There is a stationary asteroid with a glowing object on it. Using the Jump command gets me there (low gravity for the win!) and I get a sharp metal object. This seems to be everything we can do here, time to get back to our original asteroid.

The movie had a video game adaption in 1995.

I noticed a spinning asteroid on some screens that crosses the same horizontal line as the screen that my target asteroid is on. I tried to jump on it, and discovered that jump timing is important. The action stops when the interface is open and I can select verbs in peace, and unfreezes when it’s time to click on my target. There is an animation delay between me clicking on the spinning asteroid and Boris actually jumping, and then there’s the time it takes to complete the low gravity jump arc. The asteroid spins by before I can land on it, and now I'm one screen up. The spinning asteroid goes around in realtime and I either have to wait or move left to catch it and try again. I manage to time the jump on my third attempt and am back at the satellite dish.

The movie was remade in 2023, to mixed reviews.

I liked this opening puzzle because it did teach the basics of the game and interface. It was a bit daunting at first because there are so many screens to explore, but it's pretty logical and the background perspective helps with orientation. I got to use the Pick Up verb on the main menu bar and dig down into Options in order to jump. The stationary asteroid beckoned me with the glowing object and had me figure out how to jump, which prepared me for the increased difficulty of the spinning asteroid.

The satellite dish has some sort of panel on it. Trying to use or open it yields no result, and neither does attacking it with the metal pipe. I have to insert the metal pipe in it to wedge it out. Inserting the circuit board causes some weird electromagnetic feedback, and now Boris can understand all those alien symbols on that information console. Dang, I guess that learning foreign languages through electrocution is better than learning through coma! I do like that the game tries to explain what is happening - even if it's Star Trek "We need to tech our way out of this plot hole" level of logic.

The manual spells out that this is because of the “Leidenfrost Bubble” that surrounds Boris.

The Satellite Dish is some kind of communications relay marked as TERMINAL POINT A/8Y in GALACTIC PERIMETER B7. I can link up with other terminal points (from A/1Y through A/8Y), connect a channel, set the filtration system on/off, or browse the information pool. I don't know what any of these options mean. The information pool tells me that I am in the Pfallenop Asteroid Cluster, which is part of the Virgan galaxy cluster. The manual mentions that there are service ducts connecting parts of the Pfallenop cluster.

I don't know what linking up a terminal point or setting the filtration system does, but connecting a channel to Gavric Homeworld extends the bridge to the big asteroid with the city on it. So that's the Gavric homeworld. Other options include Clusteroid Delta, Clusteroid Zeta, Sof Haven, Planetoid Alpha, and Gelfic Homeworld. I'm sure that having both Gavric and Gelfic homeworld is not going to become confusing at all. I decide to open all channels and if that’s a mistake, I’ll deal with it later.

Walking up to the Gavric homeworld showcases that pathfinding will be an issue. I can click on some destination to walk to, but Boris sometimes gets stuck on corners, makes weird jumps, or just walks erratically. Sometimes he gets stuck in the scenery for no apparent reason. 

This is going to be annoying, will it?

I arrive at a street with some buildings, an information terminal, and a hooded figure that walks by. The information terminal is labelled B/5Y and tells me that there is a curfew in effect. Disobedience will be dealt with HARSHLY. Another notice tells me to pay my taxes because offenders will be dealt with HARSHLY. The third and last notice tells me that there's a rebellion being dealt with HARSHLY. You know, I have a feeling that His Majesty's High Council might be of the authoritarian kind.

The back alley contains a door with a red light, a warning sign, and two laser guns. Also, there’s a sentry robot patrolling. Predictably, walking into the red doorway or into the path of the robot leads to death. So we learn that we can die in this game. But on this screen it requires actual effort on my side, making it a safe environment to find that out. Talking to the robot leads to my death because I don’t have identification.

The robot must be from the ED-209 school of robotics, not Asimov’s.

It is here that I was actually stuck for a bit. Yes, stuck at the third puzzle in the game. I know, I've already offered to turn in my gamer card. I found that I can throw a rock into the doorway to get the guns to fire, but I wasn't sure what that is good for. I tried to lure the robot in various ways, or to attack it, or to throw the metal object at the door in the hope it would reflect the laser back at the gun and destroy it, all to no avail. I tried interacting with the key pads around the doors and the one on the robot screen has a woman who tells us to GO AWAY. I tried going back to the satellite dish and linking up with B/5Y but that doesn't seem to do anything. I picked up a food container and tried to interact with the hooded alien, to no avail. I actually found another exit to a parking lot only to get zapped by the car. I tried combining inventory items. Linking up to other points of turning on/off the filtration system? Nada.

Boris is as smooth as 100-grit sandpaper. Or, you know, like a teenager.

Actually, the last part ended up being relevant, and now I have to take back some of what I said about the interface. The main street contains a vent that seems big enough to climb in. But for all the option verbs, there's no "climb" or "enter" verb. I tried walking to it, I tried using it, I tried jumping into it, but the correct choice is to Push/Pull it. Which leads to Boris getting sucked in and dying because the filtration system is still turned on. Turning it off and Push/Pulling again leads to him climbing in, getting out at the other side of the planetoid, and landing on the other asteroid again with a bunch of trash and a mirror.

We're three puzzles in, and the interface verbs have already been working against the player. I really hope this is not a sign of things to come. Because in general, the idea makes sense: See a big open vent, try to climb in, realize that I need to turn off the spinny death blades, try again. Good stuff - the game has been great at teaching me how it works in the introductory section. But now I fear that this game manages to somehow bring back the "guess the verb" issue from text adventure games that modern interfaces were supposed to fix. I can argue that Push/Pull means “Pull yourself into the vent” but that still feels like a bit of a leap.

Oh well, time to move on. Turns out that my initial idea to throw a reflective object at the red doorway was absolutely correct because throwing the mirror does the trick. It’s evidently a double sided mirror because it reflects both lasers and destroys both guns, nice! An alien opens the hatch and tells me that if I have a problem, I need to talk to Silphinaa. That's not the reaction I've expected from someone that has death lasers at their door towards the guy that just destroyed them - I was expected to be dealt with HARSHLY.

What a coincidence, I’m playing a game like that right now!

Silphinaa turns out to be the woman who lives in the building that has the mean death robot patrolling in front of. She lets us in despite not having any identification and despite her not trusting anyone that speaks the Erdic tongue. But we look harmless enough. Ouch, talk about a backhanded compliment. But when a pretty lady opens her door for us, the obvious choice is to walk in.

I’m just hitchhiking through the galaxy, appearing mostly harmless.

Tune in to the next exciting episode of Universe where we find out if B+S equals more than BS!

Session Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes