Universe - The Door into Summer

Written by MenhirMike

We begin this session in the spaceport after our daring escape from Baron Kaleev, ready to buy a ticket out of here. The only ticket is to the Mekanthallor Galaxy, and the airline doesn’t even guarantee that we get there because it’s a conflict zone. I tried to see if the high security ID would buy me a ticket elsewhere, but it cannot be used at all here. I had pretty high hopes when I got it, but so far it’s been completely useless.

I am surprised that Silphinaa’s ID still worked to buy a ticket on a space ship - I guess that Science Fiction authors of the early 90’s couldn’t foresee the TSA? But no such foresight was needed, 1990’s Total Recall had better airport security and required at least a disguise.

It also gave us the awesome shot of an animatronic head opening.

With the ticket in hand we’re entering the landing shuttle that brings us to the freighter, just in time before Kaleev’s droids catch up to us. If the Baron is directly ordered by the Emperor King to chase us, why didn’t he lock down the spaceport to prevent escape? I wonder if Kaleev learned all about law enforcement practices from the Lytton police department. (Thinking about it, Keith and Kaleev do sound somewhat similar, so the theory might have legs.)

I do hope they coated the panorama windows with some UV protection.

We’re in a lounge area of a ship, where we see a droid manning a shop for snacks and refreshments, some kind of imperial official, and a man named Rief Kall who is just enjoying some (non-alcoholic) drinks because he’s bored. None of them have any useful information, so I make my way back to the lift where I get a choice of the lounge, the launch bay, and four levels of passenger cabins. I know from my ticket that my cabin is on Level 1, so I’m starting with the launch bay.

I see a bunch of PTVs, including one that looks exactly like mine. Did they put it on the ship? That would be weird. I cannot interact with it in any way. There is a parking attendant droid here, who insults me when I ask where my car is parked. Did the writers have a terrible experience with valet parking in the past?

Must be from the Marvin school of robotics.

The three uppermost passenger levels all consist of sterile corridors with some doors that either lead to empty cabins, tell me that nobody’s in, or have the passenger in the cabin tell me to go away. There are some droids here as well, which don’t really do anything.

Having wasted time exploring all other areas I went to Level 1. Next to the elevator are two thugs who are discussing that there is a healer on board whom they’d like to report to security. Time for my volunteer security badge! They tell me that there is a healer on board, and that’s it. Which I already know because I just overheard them?

Someone took a crack at naming when coming up with Lumberjack and Builder.

As soon as I enter my cabin, I am getting a holographic message informing me that there are timed bombs on this ship, because the rebels cannot allow some imperial officials on board to reach Coros. The healers begged them to warn me, for which I’m grateful, and to contact the healer on board. Great, but no one told me who or where the healer is. I talk to Lumberjack and Builder again, who have the same dialogue as before. I went back to the lounge where neither Rief Kall nor the imperial official had anything new to say either.

Help us Boris Verne-Kenobi, you’re our only hope!

Back in my cabin I used the communicator which allows me to talk to other passengers on the ship. With no clue who to contact, I just went through the entire list (which is only about a dozen) before I struck gold with Myrell on Level 3, who invited me to his cabin. On the way there I try once more to talk to Builder and Lumberjack who still have nothing new to say. Please let me know in the comments if there was any clue that I missed, because I feel that there should’ve been so much more that I either missed or that got cut.

Myrell tells me that after we helped Yura, Neiamises really started to believe in the legend and is cracking down on the healers. He was supposed to help us on Wheelworld but got scared and ran. But he has something for us, the second part of the star chart. This will show us the location of the lost star Haldebar, where we will find the Power Gem. And it has to be Boris to go there because the legend says that only he can use it. The originator of the legend is lost, but remembering the section written by George Verne in the manual, I wonder if Uncle George went back through time to write the legend in the first place? That would be a pretty good plot twist (even if it’s spoiled in the manual) - I hope the game’s writing does something with the legend!

Does the legend say anything about cut content on the Wheelworld?

I can combine the two star chart fragments in my inventory to create a full map with the great white hole in the center. Leaving the cabin puts me face to face with an assassin, who’s been on our tail since we arrived at Wheelworld. I am thankful that imperial assassins are not very good at their job, because I wasted more than enough time in the same locations on Wheelworld that it shouldn’t have been an issue to find me. And I am also thankful that she likes to talk instead of shooting, because just right then one of the timed bombs explodes and knocks her out. Talk about a lucky coincidence! I pick up her gun (which is sadly broken) and a PTV Key Card from her body, make my way down to the launch bay, and escape in her PTV. This leaves Myrell and everyone else on the ship to their fate, which I try not to think too much about. At least the annoying parking attendant droid had it coming.

I wonder if Myrell can heal from that?

The PTV calls us “Ms. Tyrek” and inquires how the assasination went. Why, thank you, It was a blast and swept the audience off their feet! We are also having another vision of Emperor King Neiamises, commanding a battle fleet into a war against the Mekalien Empire from the prow of his flagship.

What’s better than a Silver Surfer? A Golden Surfer, of course!

We’re now in a similar situation as when we left Pfallenop, in the middle of space with a PTV and the empire hot on our heels, but with no clear plan on where to go. Opening the star map shows that we’re right next to the Mekalien Empire, which should be an active warzone given the vision we just had. The closest planet is Ankarlon 5 which the joyriders guide identifies as a Virgan military base. I expect that the place must be on high alert since I’m among the Empire’s most wanted, but instead all I find is a gorgeous crawler on an otherwise desolate planet that was ravaged by war.

The art in this game has been consistently good, but this section is treat after treat. It is unfortunate that the screen doesn’t scroll, because the crawler spans two screens. There’s printed Universe art that has the source image in all its glory.

How big is the crawler? At least ten feet long!

After I had my fill of the visuals I could only find one thing to do here, pulling out a metal bar from some rubble. I now have both a straight and a bent metal bar, and no clue what to do with either of them. Time for more exploration. Next up is the planet Siruf 2 (a “barren world that we should steer well clear of”), which has no explorable quadrants. There is also a Black Hole and the Mekanthallor Galaxy as destinations, but those just put us in the middle of space. That black hole must not be very strong since the PTV doesn’t get pulled into it and destroyed, but is also not very useful. The same is true for a Mekalien Defense Outpost, just empty space. There is a space station on the map, which is out of reach with my fuel. The last destination is another visual jackpot, the planet Daarlor-Korv. Described by the manual as “a moderately sized rock planet”, then upon landing described as “very Earth-like” but “one would think that it had suffered from some sort of nuclear holocaust in the distant past”. This gives me vibes from 2004’s Battlestar Galactica, a show that you absolutely need to watch if you haven’t seen it yet and re-watch if you did. There is a shrine with a circular recess, perfect for my combined star chart. Except that it doesn’t work.

A round object and a round recess? I trained my entire toddlerhood for this moment!

I see that there’s a hole in the middle and try to combine the straight metal bar with the star chart, which succeeds. Would it be fair to call this a step up in puzzle difficulty since we had to combine three items for this? Inserting the completed star chart opens a portal that sucks us in and brings us to a place that Boris describes as EEE-VIL. It’s very desolate and worse than a ghost town. But it looks great, because this section of the game doesn’t let up on the eye candy.

We’re in a portal within a portal. Two more to achieve full inception!

Walking across the bridge leads us to a space where the Power Gem is protected by six beams of sorts. As I walk towards it, Boris remarks that one of the floor plates gives way under his weight. There is a tablet which says that “Power is only given to those who seek wisdom. And wisdom is only gained over time. Therefore time is the key…”. This is followed by an image that shows a bird’s eye view of the plaza and six spots highlighted.

Here I was, hoping for some kind of complex puzzle that would do the location justice but no, it’s just a matter of stepping on each of the six highlighted floor tiles to disable one of the six beams. The floor tiles are not highlighted on the screen itself, which is good for the puzzle. But the tablet showed me the location, and I can use the Look verb to see ones that look slightly different than the rest. The only additional complexity is that there’s not enough time after the sixth floor plate to run up and grab the gem - but the game helpfully put a rock onto this very screen, which makes it obvious that throwing the rock is the way to go.

The biggest challenge was once again the Pathfinding, causing Boris to get stuck on the corners.

Once I dislodge the Power Gem, all hell breaks loose and some demons fly in. I grab the gem and run back to the portal, only to have the bridge crumble in front of me. I tried jumping over the gap and running to the portal, but the demons caught me. I wasn’t sure if I needed to do anything special here, but it turns out that it’s just pathfinding messing with me again. On the third attempt I got Boris to run to the portal and leave Haldebar behind.

As much as I was gushing about the art, Haldebar was disappointing. Only two screens with an overly simple puzzle that has the solution right there on the screen. I don’t know how much of the game is left but it still feels like I’m in the early parts of it because the puzzles just don’t get any more interesting. The puzzle setups are great, but everything is so simple and self-contained.

Now that I have the Power Gem I am once again faced with the central question of Universe: “What am I supposed to do now?” I’ve explored locations for a bit before ending up with the crawler, because I refuse to believe that this location is only good for a metal bar. And I was right, there is something else here!

Scrolling background would’ve really added to the scale of this scene.

Can you see it? No? It’s right there on the screen! I’m even pointing at it! That’s right, the little flashing light there is right next to a terminal. Should I give the game credit for having a similar puzzle at the very beginning with the sharp metal object on a background asteroid, or rant about pixel hunting despite the light literally flashing? There are other lights flashing on this screen, which are useless. Unfortunately the terminal is dead and needs a power source. Fortunately I have a Power Gem which can power it up. And since the terminal is meant for alien hands, I have to use the arm computer to interface with it (making me feel like John Connor hacking an ATM in Terminator 2). The text on the terminal is in an alien language and requires resolving to the universal approach to Universes puzzles, just clicking on every option until I find the correct one by chance. (I tried to see if there’s a translation chart but came up empty. If I did miss a way to translate the alien language, please let me know in the comments!)

It triggers a tractor beam that puts me face to face with a member of the crab-like Mekalien race, who addresses me as the saviour that the ancient texts spoke of. Power Gems are sought after by the Virgan Empire, but common in Mekalien technology. Neiamises is trying to accumulate a large amount of them while the Mekalien seek to prevent the abuse of them since their purpose is not for evil. Unfortunately the Mekalien is about to die, but it leaves us with a parting gift in the form of a cloaking device and the trust in me to do the right thing.

I should find a library and check out those ancient texts for myself.

Okay, this is weird. We just had to literally find a lost planet by using a portal that could be opened with a star chart inserted into a shrine, just to get ONE Power Gem. And now they tell me that these things are common in the Mekalien technology, and that Neiamises is trying to amass a large amount of them? Is that like me trying to bury a lithium ion battery on the moon to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, while another part of the world can just order ten of them for the price of a pizza? My disbelief has been suspended so many times that I’m expecting an NFL team to sign it for next season.

This session has been among my favorite experiences in the game. Every location had something amazing to look at and listen to, as evidenced by the screenshots. I haven’t talked much about the music, but it’s been absolutely on point throughout with a variety of tunes that add to the atmosphere. I’ve given up on expectations for the puzzle design and writing, but the audiovisual spectacle here is what left an impression on teenage me in 1995.

For the next posting, I hope that the war between Virgan and Mekalien empires and the ancient legend of saviour Boris Verne result in some epic clash that makes the entire setup pay off!

Session Time: 2 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 9 hours 15 minutes