One of my most memorable vignettes in my campaign of Ultima Underworld was when I was fresh off an immensely harrowing battle with a batch of poisonous spiders. I had fought for my life and the adrenaline was still pumping. Engulfed in a sea of intimidating and all consuming darkness, I was cycling between walking and short spurts of sprinting to overcome my fear, when suddenly a figure emerged! The shock fueled my arm to swing my axe. Over and over I chopped away at their skull, dodging my own fair share of powerful blows from the enemy. We danced in a circle and fought in the small cave, until I finally fell it… only to realize it was not an enemy, but a dwarf I had previously been tasked with meeting. I looked over his slumped corpse in horror. Entered his modest abode to find trinkets belonging to him. I had committed murder… murder in the darkness.
Overtime, my character began to grow mad from it. He began scrawling notes in the corners of his map: “Darkness… darkness everywhere”… the ocean of black constantly producing more and more tunnel, more and more caves. More and more stalking, pacing silhouettes. He almost wished a cliff would surprise him, that he might finally fall into the void which constantly surrounded him! It was the slow and steady end to his sanity.
Though I'm younger, I had every ounce of knowledge as to Ultima Underworld’s beauty in craft and revolutionary effect on videogames as an artform. Everything from its controversial proximity to Wolfenstein 3D (in my opinion, the definitive "Who shot first?" of videogames) to its creation (or, in my opinion, its delivery on an already brewing concoction) of the immersive simulation design philosophy. But despite knowing these things and more about it, I had never experienced it (a typical but serious sin) and, upon acquiring the machinery, I atoned with a quick purchase from GOG. I've never seen something download so quickly in all my life - which was poetic, given that the experience would dwarf most modern games l've played in the last few years.
I played my first 10 to 12 hours of Ultima Underworld with zero sound. Yes, I'll say that again: no music, no SFX, no nothin'. It was not on purpose, but merely a product of my privileged place in the annals of game history fueling ignorance about having to manually declare audio specs. I'm sure this rings as a more common experience than l'd think back in the day that it was released (playing games with no sound, not being ignorant) but I'm 29 years old - the embodiment of "you damn kids and your short attention-spans!"... alright that might be a little much. I don't typically resist the slower, quieter experiences - in fact I very often relish in them - but I went a good chunk of my campaign of a game from 1992 with zero audio feedback and did not think a single thing of it. In fact, I was as captured and engaged by the experience as I've ever been while playing a video game; and I wanted to ask "why?"
My theory: darkness.
Now this is not the only thing which I think makes Ultima Underworld a fantastic moment-to-moment experience. Despite the perceived tedium (even in its own day), I actually think very highly of the Ul and combat systems. Tim Schaeffer, when reminiscing on the design of his adventure game opus Grim Fandango, insightfully noted that, up until Grim, the cursor in point n' click games served as a metaphor for the player/player-character's attention - which stacks up given the cerebral nature of the genre. Most of a game like Maniac Mansion happens in the player/character's head. Failures are uneventful and rarely manifest in the world save a quippy remark, and successes (though being quite eventful when they’re achieved) are rarely found at all. His intention with Grim was to literalize the experience by adopting the real time character controller of most third person games at the time, and render all elements diegetic: inventory is in your coat, character looks at objects of importance - (I will stop there, as it is not the topic of discussion).
Though a wonderful thought, there exists a middle ground between these two approaches which I actually favor above all others. Where in Monkey Island the cursor represents the mind and its innerworkings, in Ultima Underworld it is the mind and the hand. Wanna pick something up? Well... pick it up. You wanna slash your axe right? Pull it left. You want to swing your sword downward? Raise your hand upward! At the end of the day, Ultima Underworld makes the most of the beauty of a mouse, which is the most effective tool for interfacing between player and game-world aside from touch screens. You manually use the mouse in such a way that it is analogue to the actions onscreen. The only game (that I've seen) to push it even further was Cybermage, where an arm literally extends outward and your mouse is captured at the hand.
There are many more things one could site on this subject, but we're here to talk about darkness. As crazy as it may sound, and with all the other wonderfully immersive elements flooding this game, I find that to be the most powerful engine for its moment to moment potency (so much so that I murdered an innocent dwarf), and it wasn’t until I played Arx Fatalis that I believed it.
Arkane Studios is my Looking Glass. They introduced me to immersive simulation through their 2012 masterpiece Dishonored, thus changing my life, and I have enjoyed the depth and brilliance of their craft and player-centered titles ever since. Being such a devotee, I made it a priority to look back as well, enjoying an immensely fun playthrough of the massacred Arx 2 - otherwise known as Dark Messiah (which contains the best first-person melee l've ever experienced) - and with my enthusiasm for Ultima Underworld still very fresh, my sights were quickly set on Arx Fatalis - especially as it was initially pitched (and given approval by Spector) as UU3.
I was immediately hit by the beauty and depth of its design. The architecture and breadth of its world and systems. Its inclusion and refinement of the point/click/drag Ul. Its evolution of the directional combat of Ultima Underworld - an all too late and elegant solution to the Thief quandary (but then we wouldn't have really gotten Thief, so thank God it wasn’t arrived at). Everything about Arx stunned me, but one thing was off:
Unlike in Ultima Underworld, I was not at all times faced with an abyss of uncertainty. A void simultaneously pushing me back and pulling me in - every step an instance of fighting my most basic instinct to flee the dark giving way to my need to progress. The constant internal voice asking when I would be met with the emergence of a wondering silhouette, and would they be friend or foe? Finding a stray torch and rejoicing, all to wake up to it burnt out because you forgot to put it out before you rested. Your eyes then suddenly being assaulted by that darkness you try so hard to keep at bay. UU was at all times a true journey into the unknown, and as such, cultivated a sort of sleeper-cosmic horror experience.
The exclusion of this was palpable during my playthrough of Arx. There was not the slightest hint of this tension as I wondered the beautiful maze they had constructed. Perhaps in seeing an enemy, but never with the mere act of moving forward. In this, I believe Arx falls short of the bar set by UU, and does not present the moment to moment feel and psychological friction which “crawling” through a dungeon implies. I was dwelling, not surviving.
A final comment would be to address the obvious retort: UU is how it is for the same reason Morrowind is “foggy”, and ascribing such meaning to it is anachronistic in favor of artistic intention when, in reality, it is the product of technical limitation and dealing with draw distance. And you know what? That’s a perfectly valid answer to my work… so I asked Marc Leblanc.
He started by giving me an incredible breakdown about the lighting of UU (a brief but rich exposition if anyone is interested in reading it).
“But your specific question was about draw distance.” He wrote. “I'm sure that was a factor, and it probably contributed to the decision to have a single light source on the player's head. (That's not the only reason; every light adds to the cost of rendering every pixel.)” And at this point, I felt as if I had in fact been refuted in my ascriptions of meaning. Until he said this:
“Some players discovered a cheat where you deleted the SHADES.DAT file and then the game would run but be fully bright, so you could see everything. If you want to see the draw distance, you could probably get the game on GOG and do that hack.”
I didn’t do the hack but I looked it up, and it is true. Deleting the file makes the game entirely bright. Of course there could be far more to the technological story. It’s not in the slightest an explicit declaration, but to me, the fact that it is possible to see everything and run the game just fine does indicate that the choice was not mere pragmatism. To me, it greatly reinforces the belief that Looking Glass (then Blue Sky) understood the power of darkness.
Last edited by imsimcook; 30th Aug 2024 at 21:25.
The Dwarven Kingdom level in Arx was the most powerfull horror and tension experience in my computer gaming life. Did you play it without sound too?Originally Posted by imsimcook
Cant complain this is'nt a thing nowadays. I broke my mouse playing TES Arena this way. By the way, check out Trespasser (1998) in this regard.
Overall, thank you for sharing your impressions in such elaborate and intresting way. It was really an engaging read.
Good afternoon! I think your Dwarven Kingdom comment is a fair callout (please excuse the nauseating corporate jargon, it’s been engrained in me). It for sure does get the closest to creating the moment-to-moment feel of the original UU I’m talking about. In fact, there is almost a sense in which it telegraphed the experience Frictional Games would provide with the first Amnesia game. I guess my one comment, upon processing your accurate criticism of the work, is that for me it still doesn’t measure up to the overall cosmic dread an entire campaign of UU provides, since it is cultivated by being submerged in it from the start. You could, however, argue that the impact of Dwarven Kingdom is heightened by its departure from the mystifying and beautiful allure of the rest of the game. I would certainly accept it.
I greatly appreciate you putting Trespasser in front of me. I had never heard of it and I’m now dying to play it. Looks like they took it further than ever before (for better or worse). I am in complete agreement that this way of interfacing dying off makes sense, however I do think (as I mentioned) that Arx refined it and adapted it masterfully into a more accessible and standard character controller. I would love to bring it back and push it even further!
Thank you so much for your feedback and words of kindness. I am absolutely thrilled to be here and hope to enjoy reading and writing more works around this amazing subculture for many years to come.
Sorry, that 'push it even further' instantly excited my imagination.
'Please, grab your mouse wire and twirl it over your head. Notice: the faster the speed the stronger the impact'
'When you're ready – just let it go!'
If seriously, I would like to hear your ideas regarding this certain topic.
Hahaha I love it! Could go even further with an evolution on the Dark Messiah kick where you put your boot right through the computer monitor!
So all jokes aside, I do really love this thread of directional combat in PC games and have been working on a little project of my own intended as a spiritual follow up to UU and Arx. Basically it would involve toggling a “duel mode” which maps melee strikes to both buttons and the scroll wheel of a mouse. It’s super early in development but the prototype actually feels really good, and I’m hoping to push it further when I have time.
I have a “showcase” video for the game which goes into it. If you’re interested It’ll post it here, but only if you say you are. I’m not trying to promote the game (cause it’s waaaaay down the road) but it does a better job of showing what I’m talking about. .
I would love to see it. It's always a pleasure to hear new ideas, to see them especially so.
Here it is! Again, very very early but I think shows promise.
1. I just now realized how I hate it when mousewheel is an action button in a videogame. Thanks God Morrowind have an awesome key mapping for this type of attack.
2. It looks overcomplicated: separate buttons for each type of attack. You can simply RMB + move your mouse in a direction of desired type of attack. For example: RMB + mouse movement from left to right = no purpose of your LMB existence. For stab look 1.
Did you play Exanima? They have done an amazing job both with key mapping pragmatics and implementing your idea of mouse movement direction.
Yeah, it's a bit harsh and you didn't ask for any kind of commentary, advices more so... Sooo, yeah.
Nope, I’m all about getting criticism. As far as I’m concerned, the harsher the better! I don’t know if you watched till the last slide, but your mouse movement idea is the concept for version two of this system. It actually was the initial idea, but is a bit difficult to implement and figure out in engine (but the code may have been cracked, bad pun not initially intended), so I settled for this first scheme just to get me on my way. it’s actually very comforting to see you say you would rather that version, as that was the version I was most excited about when designing the game.
I will be sure to check that game out too!
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