Universe (1994 video game)

Universe was the second and last point-and-click adventure developed by Core Design, who then instead concentrated on 3D games for the PC and fifth-generation consoles, including what would become Tomb Raider. It has begun as a direct sequel for Core Design's successful 1992 comic fantasy adventure game Curse of Enchantia, which would continue the adventures of the young teenager Brad as he would return to an otherdimensional realm of Enchantia with his sister Jenny[1][2] to rid that world of the remaining evil witches. This game was planned but never released, in part because of Robert Toone's departure from the company.

The new game "has grown up so much during the development that it has simply became a follow up,"[3] incorporating elements of a film script written by Rolf Mohr several years earlier while he was working with the games Workshop.[4][5] This spiritual successor game ultimately became known as simply Universe (its working title has been Curse of Enchantia II[6][7]), using a completely rewritten game engine and a similar user interface, but with inclusion of in-game text and dialogue. Universe premise is also similar to that of Curse of Enchantia, featuring a young man (the protagonist's name was changed and he became somewhat older, but like Brad, Boris also has a sister named Jenny[8]) who is transported to another world and has to rid it of an evil overlord, but the game is more serious in its tone.[4]

Responding to some of the criticism directed at Curse of Enchantia, Core Design described Universe as being "a lot" more logical and less linear than their first adventure game.[9] They also described the text-based system as an improvement over the use of only icons, the benefits being that it allows conversations between characters and simply "it works". They also acknowledged that Curse of Enchantia had "suffered considerably" due to inclusion of action sequences, something that "adventure gamers don't want in their games," so the ones in Universe were made "short and simple" enough. Furthermore, an improved engine allowed the game to load faster and fit on fewer floppy disks.[10]

The game was notable for its then-unique ability to display 256 colors at once on a standard Amiga 500, instead of just 32, due to its innovative system SPAC (Super Pre-Adjusted Colour).[5] Another feature never seen before on the Amiga was its dynamic music system similar to LucasArts' iMUSE.[10] The game was at first supposed to feature a supporting character, following Boris through the game, but this had to be abandoned because the Amiga lacked enough memory to handle two scaled sprites of the characters at the same time. The animations of the sprite of Boris was rotoscoped; the character is actually a digitized version of Rolf Mohr.[11]