Oo-Topos

From: Christopher E. Forman <ceforman SP@G worldnet.att.net>
Review appeared in SPAG #9 -- June 11, 1996

NAME: Oo-Topos                                 GAMEPLAY: 1 or 2-word commands
AUTHOR: Michael Berlyn                         PLOT: Strictly rudimentary
EMAIL: ???                                     ATMOSPHERE: A few nice touches
AVAILABILITY: Commercial (Sentient Software)   WRITING: Minimalist
PUZZLES: Not overly difficult                  SUPPORTS: C64, Apple II, IBM
CHARACTERS: Lifeless obstacles                 DIFFICULTY: Medium

[This review is based on the Apple II version of the game.]

        "Oo-Topos" is an oldie but a goodie.  It was written billions and
billions of years ago (to be exact, 1981), during the dawn of the home
computing era.  It was also the very first game written by Michael Berlyn,
before he went on to write "Cutthroats," "Infidel," and "Suspended" at
Infocom.  (Incidentally, to add to the recent "Where Are They Now?" article
in April's "Computer Game Review," Berlyn also worked at Accolade for some
time, where he did the "King's Quest"-like "Altered Destiny" a few years
back, and was also part of a team which created Sega and Super Nintendo games
-- he worked on the original "Bubsy," for instance.)
        The plot is very straightforward as sci-fi stories go: You were
transporting a shipload of scientific equipment and a serum to cure an Earth-
bound plague, when aliens caught your ship in their tractor beam and grounded
it on their homeworld of Oo-Topos.  You begin the game in a cell, having
forced the door open, and must escape the prison, collect the scattered
cargo, and locate the necessary parts to put your ship back together.
        You interact via a two-word parser superimposed on a minimal
interface -- there's no prompt, just a cursor, and the text spans 40 columns,
all in caps.  Still, it looks more like the Infocom format than the Scott
Adams adventures -- "Oo-Topos" has full (albeit rather sparse) room
descriptions as opposed to a simple room name and a list of objects, which
makes it feel less mechanical.  Even so, there's not much of a command set.
There are no synonyms, it's impossible to examine room scenery, and you can't
even examine objects unless you're carrying them.  (There are a few
exceptions to the last one.)
        According to the sleeved package the game comes in (mine has a $32.95
price tag still attached -- wow!), Berlyn spent a year and a half writing and
programming the game.  The writing is passable for such an early effort, but
it's very prosaic, nowhere near the level of Berlyn's books.  (He's had four
science-fiction novels published: "The Integrated Man," "Crystal Phoenix,"
"Blight," and "The Eternal Enemy.")  Players get little sense of wonder as
they wander the corridors of the alien prison, as the text suffers from the
sparse minimalism of early adventures.  The aliens themselves are particularly
lifeless, serving only as obstacles to impede the player's progress.
        The puzzles, though no doubt original at the time, are pretty simple
by today's standards.  A 2-word parser doesn't allow for something as complex
as, say, the Enigma machine in "Jigsaw."  Don't forget that the game had to
fit on a 180K single-sided floppy as well.  Much of the game is derivative of
the original Crowther and Woods Adventure (when you die, you're resurrected,
but your possessions are lost, etc.).  A few bits of text pay humble tribute
to Adventure (such as eating the food -- you're told that it's "pretty tasty
food").  Most puzzles embody the characteristic cause-and-effect logic --
setting up conditions so a solution can occur -- but there's no veil of
atmosphere or plot to conceal the fact that these are simple logic puzzles.
        Sprinkled throughout the game are a number of drop-an-object mazes.
These are hard, no two ways about it.  You'll have to make maps if you expect
to get through them.  Maze-haters will likely become fed up very quickly.
But, considering that the game's date places it in the company of "Adventure"
and the "Zork" Trilogy, I'm willing to let that slide.
        Despite these criticisms (which can largely be excused because the
game is so old), I had a lot of fun with "Oo-Topos," and have scored it
accordingly, breaking several rules of the SPAG rating system in an effort to
keep it from being slighted.  If you can appreciate the adventure game at its
most primitive level, you'll enjoy "Oo-Topos."  I felt a little thrill in
watching the red disk-access LED on my Apple II light up, as I waited for the
next location to be loaded into memory.  "Oo-Topos" is a piece of I-F history,
a nostalgic trip down memory lane, a perfectly preserved relic from an age of
computer gaming whose mystical aura can only be recaptured by those of us who
were there to watch the computer adventure grow up.