One more Ultima Underworld story
I can’t believe I forgot this one.
One of the levels (5, I think?) was largely populated by ghouls, with standard flesh-eating names like Eyesnack and Kneenibble. Naturally you could talk to them instead of just fighting them. Jon Maiara (the same guy responsible for the Pac-Man homage) was writing the conversations for them, and included all sorts of things like the opportunity for you to make fun of Eyesnack’s name, to which he would respond by making fun of your name in return. You see the edge case, of course, right?
That’s right, part of our precious 640K was devoted to checking for whether the player’s name is also Eyesnack, in which case, in response to your mockery, the ghoul proclaims indignantly, “But your name same as mine!”
Maybe that will make you feel better about Judy falling into the lava.
Tags: games, programming
March 18th, 2011 at 8:13 am
I would love to hear a UU story everyday! so yeah, keep them coming 🙂
March 18th, 2011 at 10:48 am
Wow, I had forgotten all about that. How do you remember this stuff? I wonder if anyone ever tried it out. Seems like it’d be a letdown to get all the way to level 5 and have him not notice.
March 22nd, 2011 at 6:39 pm
[…] Schmidt, former Looking Glass Studios programmer, shares one other little story from the development of Ultima Underworld: Jon Maiara (the same guy responsible for the Pac-Man homage) was writing the conversations for […]
March 22nd, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Ultima Underworld is my favourite game of all time. Thank you.
March 23rd, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Thanks so much Dan–These stories are great! Please keep them coming–I’m sure that there are hundreds of these little jewels from the years at Blue Sky and Looking Glass!
Care to elaborate on who came up with the triangulation puzzle used to find the spot to play the ‘Song of Wonder’? That one KILLED me–had to read the clue book to figure it out.
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:49 am
[…] Schmidt’s memories of bugs found during the development of the game. Also, the amusing ghoul special case. (I want to replay the game with a character named “Eyesnack” just because of […]