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.  

Goblins Quest 3 – Dragons, barbarians and incas

By Ilmari

Last time, I had just resuscitated Blount from the brink of death, caused by a wolf bite. Blount’s love interest, Wynnona, had left him a letter, telling that she had set out to search for Fourbalus, the person who had stolen the key to the maze. She had also left Blount a potion that would make him a giant.

Very effective

My next task

Pac-Man 2 - Hot Dogs & Cats Living Together

Written by Michael

Junior: I was late submitting my game review to TAG and now I’m sad

Welcome back, fellow chompers!  Let’s play some more of this game based on the two major food groups for teenagers in the 1980s, pizza and gumballs.

When last we left, we had just gotten a flower for Lucy, Pac-Junior's rather pale-faced girlfriend.  Now, it seems that Junior is sad.

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.