The Dark Heart of the Uukrul - Which Games Will No Longer Be
Recently, too many events have begun to take place that remind me of a game that captured me more than all the other games (I honestly admit, I have never been a gamer) - the film “Prince of Persia” is released, an 8bit mod and Spectrum graphics, Google threw nostalgia for pacman, and here the other day they also asked me where it was I came up with such a nickname for myself. It all came together and therefore I want to talk about the wonderful game The Dark Heart of the Uukrul from the no less wonderful company Brøderbund.
It was in 1992-93, after a couple of years after the official release in 1989 on the PC and Apple II platforms. As schoolchildren, we played Uukrul binge instead of studying basic in the regional station for young technicians. Our hardware was the only one on all Search PCs (not to be confused with Search-2) manufactured by Electronmash (Kiev) with CPU КР1810BM88 - a local analogue of the Intel 8088 processor. Everything worked under DOS 3.30. The monitors were naschenny, CGA, 320x400x4 colors in two palettes.
Since the “student” PCs were not equipped with an additional extension of 512 (or 384?) KB RAM, I had to play on the “teaching” PC. It was also equipped with two 5.25 "disk drives and a LAN controller. I don’t remember what kind of network it was, this is a separate story.
So about the game itself. The Dark Heart of the Uukrul is a classic RPG according to the D&D rules (which we have not guessed for a very long time), with navigation through the mazes in the first-person view and turn-based battles with opponents on an enlarged section of the map with a top view. But let's take it in order.
I didn’t play a lot of RPGs, but I don’t remember anywhere else that the generation would take place not by manually distributing the allocated points according to characteristics, but by answering questions from the category - “So-and-so happened. Your actions? ”And 5 possible answers. By tyke method, Müller's dictionary, logic, whining and skating, we still figured out how to answer the questions so that there was happiness.
There were 4 characters - Warrior, Paladin, Priest and Mage. It was possible to give everyone a name and choose a gender, the class was tough and the composition, although it could be less than 4, but two characters of the same class could not be taken.
The actions of all the ugliness take place in a country with a hard-to-pronounce name Eriosthe, formerly the estate of the mighty Suraqis, but now in ruin and under the rule of the hordes of Uukrul. The view of this whole disgrace was always the same - as if from the first person in a small window in the middle of the screen (about 1/9 of the entire screen).
Above a third of the screen is information about characters - a health bar with status icons. Left in the center - information on the existing spells and prayers, as well as the state of the "convoy" - the supply of food. Ukrul teaches you to always think that there should be enough food on the round trip. On the right is a hint about the available actions. This zone always has to be controlled, because most often secret doors (those that are not visible) are detected at the prompt of a possible action - to open.
Bottom Scratch - Text messages about everything that happens in your party, in front of and around it. It is thanks to these text messages that the game forces the players to turn on the imagination and in monotonous gray walls see palaces, caves, forests or catacombs. And for the snack itself, for those who have reached the last location, there will be “impossible territories” - topologically impossible labyrinths that are easily displayed in 3D pseudo.
For the convenience of players there is a very useful map. It shows the studied part of the labyrinth and the fields on which "the human foot has set foot." You can place marks on the map and, when viewing, switch from place to place. In some places, the map is not accessible and you need to go along the “chuyka” and the compass, but the compass sometimes crashes and rotates like a yule.
And if it is not convenient to look at an electronic card, then in this case there is always a pencil and a notebook. Big picture
In the maze there are massively controlled doors / grates, ladders, teleporters and other things. Some are built-in mini-games - puzzles, crosswords, just picking up code. In the labyrinths there are inscriptions of different contents, from a reminder of the purchase of provisions to threats or warnings. The inscriptions are often encrypted with runes, they are deciphered by magic or prayers, or not decrypted at all.
Features of the "graphics engine" of the game - the uniformity of graphic elements - is repeatedly played out in the game itself. So you can’t always tell whether you are moving along a narrow long corridor, or you are constantly thrown back or turned 180 degrees (yes, it’s not uncommon). When leaving the door, you can often turn around and not find them behind you, because the doors were "one-sided."
It is impossible to stay in the way that is familiar to us in the game, this can only be done in specially designated gaming rooms - Sanctuary ("vacation"). Level-up takes place in them, you can safely put the extra "gear" in, there is always a teleport to any other well-known "rest" or square with a market and a mausoleum.
We already got a hacked version. In the original, when each new “vacation” was reached, it was necessary to introduce a translation of the name from the rune language into English, for which purpose four cards of “soul amulets” with a transcript of the runes were included with the manual.
Big picture
In our youth, we were timid and naive and allowed ourselves to play with ip73 - there was such a multi-game reader. She gave endless mana, food, and something else. About 5 years ago, replaying a new one, I played in the "iron will" mode (save-load only upon exit) and found a game with a difficulty a little above average. If you don’t go where you still can’t climb, then the chances of being suddenly killed are minimal.
The system of battles in the game is quite simple, but at the same time gives scope for building tactics and strategies. When meeting with monsters, their picture is displayed in a window from the "out of sight" view, and then the battle map is loaded. Fights are more reminiscent of chess games - characters can only move one square in a turn, and they can only hit neighboring 4 squares. The running order is also of great importance. At first there is a round of movement, then a round of strokes, and so on. During the battle, you can escape if you approach the door or the open edge of the battle map, but they can also kill the character in the last turn - this is always unpleasant.
At the beginning of the game, the Warrior and Paladin are the most powerful and useful. Both can attack with weapons and inflict substantial damage to the enemy as a whole. The weapon tended to break, and its repair was available only in one place at the NPC, so walking on a long hike at high levels with one sword per person is very risky.
The paladin has a special ability - “lay on hands”. It does the same damage to the enemy as it does to the Paladin, and it has a healing effect on its counterpart. Not recommended for use on undead - Paladin loses experience, and undead "zero on weight".
Priest and Mage usually do not participate in melee. Their main weapons are prayers and spells. What pleases the game, so that both prayers and spells you do not choose from the menu. You must enter them letter by letter, which means you have to write them down and remember. It was practically useless to play Uukrul without a notebook, which added immersion to the game’s universe.
Prayers The priest pronounces to the 4 gods of various "properties." They can both hear the Priest and come to the rescue - attack the enemy, heal, open secret passages, give protection, etc., and not hear, and you will get a missed move. But also these gods can punish the Priest for “his sins” and reduce his health. I must say that the gods in Ukrul are generally merciful, but sometimes they can be completely ruined.
Magic is also divided into 4 elements. The mage and the priest receive rings in their temples giving access to a higher level, but if the name of the prayer does not change for the priest, then suffixes or prefixes are added to the spell of the magician to enhance the effect (yes, write CYQIEKUN or KUURAOTH with pens) . Moreover, not all levels of “power” were available for each spell. Spells always work, but there are interesting monsters that ignore or reflect magic (it is always nice to know about this "in fact").
The magician at the beginning is the weakest of all, but heals best of all and by the end of the game becomes the most useful character of the highest level (if he is not regularly killed). If suddenly one of the characters is killed, then in the mausoleum it can be resurrected for money in “warm traces”, and if “traces have cooled”, then you can hire a new character with a basic level and experience.
The "gear" has weight, the characters have power and they won’t take it all away. But if you put something on the ground, then it is highly likely that after many hours of playing you accidentally stumble on things you left.
The game was captivating from the very beginning when you find out the history of the earth and at every step when you read the descriptions of the terrain happening around the events. The game was more like reading a book than the game itself, this is very closely related to the MUD, about which we also did not know anything then. One of the pieces of the manual (or maybe just a fun joke) was the diary of Mary, the leader of the missing expedition, whose spirit appeared from time to time on the way of the party.
The smoothly unfolding plot, immersion in a fantasy world, the constant repetition of spells, solving charades and "chess" battles did not let any part of the cerebral cortex get bored. The only organ resting in this game is the eyes.
The graphics of 1989, which was practically absent by today's standards (then it was simply amazing), did not deprive the player of space for imagination. That is why, I think, this game was so exciting. Now in the era of 3D, GPU arms races and other bells and whistles, the player was left with the opportunity to simply observe pre-painted pictures, and not relive them in his imagination, like an interesting book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPHUI7BE1BM
Another very useful effect of this game for me, then a schoolboy, was a significant increase in the level of knowledge of the English language - the game was very rich not so much in dialogs as in descriptions of a world in which often details were crucial. So, with wild enthusiasm, we mastered the world's computer masterpieces - with a notepad, Muller and a pack of 5.25 diskettes.
"For me this was" the most interesting computer game. "There will be no such games anymore. There will be others, and nobody will he’ll say we lost or acquired
PS All the pictures and videos weren’t mine, found on Google
PPS I was surprised to learn that in 1999 the game inspired the Russian band Rakoth to write the song of the same name, which was included in the Planeshift album.
UPD. You can download and go again here: www.abandonia.com/en/downloadgame/475
It was in 1992-93, after a couple of years after the official release in 1989 on the PC and Apple II platforms. As schoolchildren, we played Uukrul binge instead of studying basic in the regional station for young technicians. Our hardware was the only one on all Search PCs (not to be confused with Search-2) manufactured by Electronmash (Kiev) with CPU КР1810BM88 - a local analogue of the Intel 8088 processor. Everything worked under DOS 3.30. The monitors were naschenny, CGA, 320x400x4 colors in two palettes.
Since the “student” PCs were not equipped with an additional extension of 512 (or 384?) KB RAM, I had to play on the “teaching” PC. It was also equipped with two 5.25 "disk drives and a LAN controller. I don’t remember what kind of network it was, this is a separate story.
So about the game itself. The Dark Heart of the Uukrul is a classic RPG according to the D&D rules (which we have not guessed for a very long time), with navigation through the mazes in the first-person view and turn-based battles with opponents on an enlarged section of the map with a top view. But let's take it in order.
Character Generation
I didn’t play a lot of RPGs, but I don’t remember anywhere else that the generation would take place not by manually distributing the allocated points according to characteristics, but by answering questions from the category - “So-and-so happened. Your actions? ”And 5 possible answers. By tyke method, Müller's dictionary, logic, whining and skating, we still figured out how to answer the questions so that there was happiness.
There were 4 characters - Warrior, Paladin, Priest and Mage. It was possible to give everyone a name and choose a gender, the class was tough and the composition, although it could be less than 4, but two characters of the same class could not be taken.
Game world
The actions of all the ugliness take place in a country with a hard-to-pronounce name Eriosthe, formerly the estate of the mighty Suraqis, but now in ruin and under the rule of the hordes of Uukrul. The view of this whole disgrace was always the same - as if from the first person in a small window in the middle of the screen (about 1/9 of the entire screen).
Above a third of the screen is information about characters - a health bar with status icons. Left in the center - information on the existing spells and prayers, as well as the state of the "convoy" - the supply of food. Ukrul teaches you to always think that there should be enough food on the round trip. On the right is a hint about the available actions. This zone always has to be controlled, because most often secret doors (those that are not visible) are detected at the prompt of a possible action - to open.
Bottom Scratch - Text messages about everything that happens in your party, in front of and around it. It is thanks to these text messages that the game forces the players to turn on the imagination and in monotonous gray walls see palaces, caves, forests or catacombs. And for the snack itself, for those who have reached the last location, there will be “impossible territories” - topologically impossible labyrinths that are easily displayed in 3D pseudo.
For the convenience of players there is a very useful map. It shows the studied part of the labyrinth and the fields on which "the human foot has set foot." You can place marks on the map and, when viewing, switch from place to place. In some places, the map is not accessible and you need to go along the “chuyka” and the compass, but the compass sometimes crashes and rotates like a yule.
And if it is not convenient to look at an electronic card, then in this case there is always a pencil and a notebook. Big picture
In the maze there are massively controlled doors / grates, ladders, teleporters and other things. Some are built-in mini-games - puzzles, crosswords, just picking up code. In the labyrinths there are inscriptions of different contents, from a reminder of the purchase of provisions to threats or warnings. The inscriptions are often encrypted with runes, they are deciphered by magic or prayers, or not decrypted at all.
Features of the "graphics engine" of the game - the uniformity of graphic elements - is repeatedly played out in the game itself. So you can’t always tell whether you are moving along a narrow long corridor, or you are constantly thrown back or turned 180 degrees (yes, it’s not uncommon). When leaving the door, you can often turn around and not find them behind you, because the doors were "one-sided."
It is impossible to stay in the way that is familiar to us in the game, this can only be done in specially designated gaming rooms - Sanctuary ("vacation"). Level-up takes place in them, you can safely put the extra "gear" in, there is always a teleport to any other well-known "rest" or square with a market and a mausoleum.
We already got a hacked version. In the original, when each new “vacation” was reached, it was necessary to introduce a translation of the name from the rune language into English, for which purpose four cards of “soul amulets” with a transcript of the runes were included with the manual.
Big picture
In our youth, we were timid and naive and allowed ourselves to play with ip73 - there was such a multi-game reader. She gave endless mana, food, and something else. About 5 years ago, replaying a new one, I played in the "iron will" mode (save-load only upon exit) and found a game with a difficulty a little above average. If you don’t go where you still can’t climb, then the chances of being suddenly killed are minimal.
Weapons, spells, prayers, battles
The system of battles in the game is quite simple, but at the same time gives scope for building tactics and strategies. When meeting with monsters, their picture is displayed in a window from the "out of sight" view, and then the battle map is loaded. Fights are more reminiscent of chess games - characters can only move one square in a turn, and they can only hit neighboring 4 squares. The running order is also of great importance. At first there is a round of movement, then a round of strokes, and so on. During the battle, you can escape if you approach the door or the open edge of the battle map, but they can also kill the character in the last turn - this is always unpleasant.
At the beginning of the game, the Warrior and Paladin are the most powerful and useful. Both can attack with weapons and inflict substantial damage to the enemy as a whole. The weapon tended to break, and its repair was available only in one place at the NPC, so walking on a long hike at high levels with one sword per person is very risky.
The paladin has a special ability - “lay on hands”. It does the same damage to the enemy as it does to the Paladin, and it has a healing effect on its counterpart. Not recommended for use on undead - Paladin loses experience, and undead "zero on weight".
Priest and Mage usually do not participate in melee. Their main weapons are prayers and spells. What pleases the game, so that both prayers and spells you do not choose from the menu. You must enter them letter by letter, which means you have to write them down and remember. It was practically useless to play Uukrul without a notebook, which added immersion to the game’s universe.
Prayers The priest pronounces to the 4 gods of various "properties." They can both hear the Priest and come to the rescue - attack the enemy, heal, open secret passages, give protection, etc., and not hear, and you will get a missed move. But also these gods can punish the Priest for “his sins” and reduce his health. I must say that the gods in Ukrul are generally merciful, but sometimes they can be completely ruined.
Magic is also divided into 4 elements. The mage and the priest receive rings in their temples giving access to a higher level, but if the name of the prayer does not change for the priest, then suffixes or prefixes are added to the spell of the magician to enhance the effect (yes, write CYQIEKUN or KUURAOTH with pens) . Moreover, not all levels of “power” were available for each spell. Spells always work, but there are interesting monsters that ignore or reflect magic (it is always nice to know about this "in fact").
The magician at the beginning is the weakest of all, but heals best of all and by the end of the game becomes the most useful character of the highest level (if he is not regularly killed). If suddenly one of the characters is killed, then in the mausoleum it can be resurrected for money in “warm traces”, and if “traces have cooled”, then you can hire a new character with a basic level and experience.
The "gear" has weight, the characters have power and they won’t take it all away. But if you put something on the ground, then it is highly likely that after many hours of playing you accidentally stumble on things you left.
A game
The game was captivating from the very beginning when you find out the history of the earth and at every step when you read the descriptions of the terrain happening around the events. The game was more like reading a book than the game itself, this is very closely related to the MUD, about which we also did not know anything then. One of the pieces of the manual (or maybe just a fun joke) was the diary of Mary, the leader of the missing expedition, whose spirit appeared from time to time on the way of the party.
The smoothly unfolding plot, immersion in a fantasy world, the constant repetition of spells, solving charades and "chess" battles did not let any part of the cerebral cortex get bored. The only organ resting in this game is the eyes.
The graphics of 1989, which was practically absent by today's standards (then it was simply amazing), did not deprive the player of space for imagination. That is why, I think, this game was so exciting. Now in the era of 3D, GPU arms races and other bells and whistles, the player was left with the opportunity to simply observe pre-painted pictures, and not relive them in his imagination, like an interesting book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPHUI7BE1BM
Another very useful effect of this game for me, then a schoolboy, was a significant increase in the level of knowledge of the English language - the game was very rich not so much in dialogs as in descriptions of a world in which often details were crucial. So, with wild enthusiasm, we mastered the world's computer masterpieces - with a notepad, Muller and a pack of 5.25 diskettes.
"For me this was" the most interesting computer game. "There will be no such games anymore. There will be others, and nobody will he’ll say we lost or acquired
PS All the pictures and videos weren’t mine, found on Google
PPS I was surprised to learn that in 1999 the game inspired the Russian band Rakoth to write the song of the same name, which was included in the Planeshift album.
UPD. You can download and go again here: www.abandonia.com/en/downloadgame/475