Dark Heart of Uukrul: Final Rating

This is the last codex passage I was allowed to read at my level. I wonder what the last one would have said. I ultimately used this beacon to destroy Eriosthe.

The Dark Heart of Uukrul
United Kingdom

Digital Studios (developer); Brøderbund Software (publisher)
Released 1989 for DOS and Apple II
Date Started: 17 October 2012
Date Won: 15 November 2012
Total Hours: 29
Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)
Final Rating: 61
Ranking at Time of Posting: 69/71 (97%)
Raking as of Game #455: 449/455 (99%)

In my first posting on The Dark Heart of Uukrul, PetrusOctavianus linked me to an interview that RPGCodex resident (and die-hard CRPG Addict fan) Crooked Bee completed with the Uukrul developers, Ian Boswell and Martin Buis. The interview, preceded by a nice review of the game, is worth a read because it offers a broad view of the game that my own writing has not provided. Bee praises the game for delivering "a living and highly dangerous environment that makes the dungeon as such, and not just Uukrul, your antagonist." She enumerates virtues of various levels--virtues that I didn't stop to ponder enough during my own playing.

As much as I know that my review will rate the game highly, I also think I did it a bit of an injustice. I played most of it during a time in which I didn't have the solid hours to devote to it (it should not have taken anywhere near a month to finish), and my playing, my notes, my maps, and my memories are all too fragmented. Reading various online reviews and walkthroughs, I'm more aware of the thorough planning and tight structure that went into each area. There is, for instance, an area that every review calls "The Cube," but which my disorganized mapping left me utterly unaware that it formed a cube. Ditto the "Pyramid." I should not have abandoned traditional mapping of the game when I did.

Crooked Bee has an interesting paragraph at the beginning of her review that I want to focus on for a minute. It presents a dichotomy of CRPGs that I have never considered before:

There are different kinds of CRPGs that focus on different things. To those who, like me, prefer CRPGs that are about abstraction rather than simulation, Dark Heart of Uukrul is pretty much a perfect game. It does not aim to model a superficially "realistic" NPC behavior, nor offers an "interactive" story or appeals to the player's emotions in an awkward attempt to get personal. It is aware that, much like a wargame, a CRPG is a mental exercise first and foremost, an abstraction of a task solved through character progression in the broad sense, one discarding everything superfluous and relying on a strict system of several abstract elements that both support and limit each other: character development, dungeon design, and combat, each of them a "puzzle" of its own, representing the various challenges your characters overcome in their progress, as well as a piece of the overarching logic that you must figure out to master the game.

I absolutely agree with the distinction she makes between "abstraction" and "simulation," and yet in so agreeing, I must say that I generally prefer the opposite type of game. I like games that do "get personal" and that offer realistic NPCs. While appreciating their intellectual challenge, I generally scoff at the unrealistic puzzles that a lot of games provide. Who put all those signs on the walls? Where did Sheltem get the contractors who wrote his name into the floor plan? Do all of the clues offered in Uukrul's cryptic crossword really make sense in the context of a quasi-Medieval society? These types of things keep me up.

Why would Uukrul allow this kind of hint in his dungeon? Does he have a death wish?

 
What Crooked Bee seems to be arguing is that we shouldn't take these challenges literally, but instead treat them as abstractions of what such characters would encounter. It makes sense; when you think about it, everything in a game is an abstraction. Hit points are an abstraction of a character's ability to deflect and absorb damage. Characters who move one at a time in turn-based combat are an abstraction for the confused simultaneous melee that would accompany real combat. The "backpack" is an abstraction for the myriad ways in which a real character would find to haul and stow gear. If I'm willing to accept abstractions for inventory, combat, and controls, why not for plot as well? It's certainly worth thinking about.

In the meantime, let's talk GIMLET. I'm going to quote a little from Crooked Bee's interview here.

1. Game World. Uukrul does a great job transcending the traditional "dungeon crawl" with both a solid back story and an innovative dungeon design. In lore, it doesn't go to the level of Ultima IV or The Magic Candle, but it gives you a good reason for being in the dungeon (as level 1 characters, no less), and it's interesting how the party treads over the bones of the previous expedition.

In fact, I missed out on a big part of the game's lore by forgetting to use the "Globe of Blood" I found in the pyramid area. Gazing into the globe provided visions of the previous expedition at various key locations, but I completely forgot about it after Sagaris told me what it did (I probably took a break for a couple days at that point). I think the globe would have offered more clues and fleshed out the story.

I could have been getting these visions at multiple stages.

 
There were references throughout the game to which you needed to pay close attention to fully grasp the history and lore. My erratic playing schedule and a failure to take good notes meant that I didn't pay that kind of attention. Sagaris's revelation that he is really an ancient named Suraqis really didn't strike me with the force that the developers probably meant, as I couldn't remember who either the Ancients or Suraqis were supposed to be.

The dungeon itself is more lovingly designed than almost any other I've encountered during my CRPG playing. I loved that it didn't follow the perfectly symmetrical, square trope that we see in so many other games. In Crooked Bee's interview, the developers explain that they wanted the dungeon to "sprawl and spread out, including going up and down as well, like real caves and tunnels would...it makes exploring the dungeon a lot more mysterious, even scary, because you have no idea where it's going to lead or how far you are from your goal." This is very true at the beginning, though slightly less so towards the end when the game starts to feel a bit linear and more artificial. Still, all areas benefit from the excellent and evocative descriptors that set the tone and sometimes give hints to the puzzles that follow. Finally, the game mostly does a good job responding to the player's presence and remembering things he does at various key locations (e.g., dials remain set, key encounters remain solved), although I didn't like that I had to struggle to re-open every secret door once I left it's square. Score: 7.

The well-written descriptions make up for a lack of graphical detail or sound.

2. Character Creation and Development. The game starts out with a fantastic character creation system, and while I suppose you could "game" the process to produce the attributes that best help each character, I found it a lot more fun to do what the game suggested: envision the character first, then answer the questions honestly and live with any subsequent weaknesses. It perhaps made the opening stages a little harder, but it also made them more fun.

I wish every game started with a character creation process like this. The only ones nearly as creative so far are Ultima IV and Omega.

That you must have a fighter, a paladin, a mage, and a priest didn't bother me too much, although it does seem like a needless restriction. (The developers claim it was necessary for the plot, but it seems to me that a little tweaking could have removed that necessity.) Level progression is extremely satisfying in the game, as it's through this progression that you get higher attributes, more spell rings, and access to additional entries in the Magicians' Circle codex. Every level-up I enjoyed was followed by visits to the shrines, the Magicians' Circle, and the shops (to see if I could wield better weapons). I also like that you're rewarded for more than just combat; experience points are given for solving puzzles, accomplishing quest targets, and even finding secret doors and items. The way the game divvies combat experience is novel and fair, and I like that I finished the game without achieving the highest level; I don't generally like games with level caps, but when they have them, I want them to be difficult to reach.

It's not perfect. You reach a point in the early levels where killing monsters contributes so little to your experience that you barely advance. There's a long lag between Level 4 and subsequent levels. And there is hardly any character-specific role-playing or use of names and sexes in the game. But these concerns are outweighed by the positives. Score: 6.

3. NPC Interaction. Regrettably light. There are NPCs, of a sort, like Mara and Sagaris, but your interaction with them is generally limited to them showing up and saying things to you. You have a few encounter options, but no real dialogue options or role-playing opportunities. The few NPCs that you do encounter are very important to the plot, however. Score: 4.

Mara was kind-of an NPC, although there weren't really a lot of "interaction" options.

4. Encounters and Foes. What I like about Uukrul is that it precedes a lot of the key combats with a short cut-screen that introduces the foe and gives you some explanation as to his disposition and why you're about to fight him. The only other game that has done this particularly well is Pool of Radiance; most other games of the era just throw you into sudden encounters with interchangeable enemies. The enemies in Uukrul have various strengths and weaknesses, frailties and immunities, and are generally well distinguished by icon. I like how the same icon might represent a few characters, so you need to engage them to know what you're really facing. The game also shares with Pool of Radiance the occasional "encounter option" before combat, although these are not very plentiful and often end in the same result. It also does random encounters well. It doesn't plague you with them, but it does offer enough to keep things interesting and allow grinding if you feel like it. Score: 7.

A few encounters offered choices like this, although they didn't make a lot of difference in the end.

5. Magic and Combat. The combat and magic systems in this game were both very well done. Although the turn-based tactical combat options weren't quite to the level of Pool of Radiance, they were nearly so, with the chief drawbacks being the extra movement points given to enemies and the inability to attack on the diagonal. You have a lot of options in combat depending on the character class: attacking, defending, using items, casting spells, summoning elementals, laying on hands, and turning undead. Battles are generally dangerous and require some attention, but there's an auto-combat system for when that's not the case, and even the most nail-biting of them are over quickly enough that you don't feel bored.

I find a iconographic, tactical combat screen much more satisfying than first-person hacking and slashing.

I talked about the magic system extensively a few postings ago. While the "rings" system isn't miles removed from the "levels" offered by other games, I loved the randomness that accompanied priest prayers. Martin Buis explains the genesis of this system in the interview:

We hit upon the idea of making the wizard very deterministic and the priest very non-deterministic. I'd done psychology and was interested in exploring how Fixed Response and Variable Response schedules might be used in a game, and this worked...I particularly like the way the priest starts out frustrating and a liability to the party, but by the end is a mighty fighting machine.

The game also balances spell points very well. You have enough to last for an expedition of reasonable length, but not so many that you can waste them all casting your highest-level spells in every encounter. Score: 6.

I reloaded after I won, got the crystal ring in the fire Arkana, and tried out the CYQIEKUN spell. It was awesome. It killed every troll on the screen.

 
6. Equipment. This is one of the best games for equipment, but I didn't spend a lot of time talking about this aspect in my postings. Both in the shops and scattered within the dungeon are a wide variety of items to find, identify, wear, and wield, including weapons (obviously), armor of different types (main armor, leggings, helmets, boots, shields), magic items, scrolls, and potions. Even though he wasn't often as thorough as I would have liked, Sagaris's identifications provided more interesting descriptions of the items than we've seen in almost any other game so far. I like that the game treats quest items and regular items roughly the same, allowing Sagaris to tell you interesting things about both (in some cases, Sagaris's comments were vital to solving a puzzle). Score: 7.

The next earliest game that I know that has this kind of detailed item description is Baldur's Gate or Might & Magic VI from 1998. I just wish it had also included a damage estimate.

 
7. Economy. Also very well-done. Gold rewards are neither sparse nor generous, and since equipment, identification, food, resurrections, and weapon repair all require gold, you don't really run out of reasons to make money until the very end. I ended the game with around 15,000 gold pieces, which is a little higher than I would normally like, but I think I got most of those by raiding Uukrul's treasury at the very end. For the most part, even towards the end, I was making tough decisions about what to buy and whether I really wanted to pay for Sagaris's services to identify something I had a pretty good idea about anyway. Score: 8.

8. Quests. The main quest is reasonably interesting. Although it involves the common "kill the Big Bad" trope, it is very well-conceived in its multiple stages (some of them optional) and the quality of its puzzles. You heard me glow about the cryptic crossword and several of the navigation puzzles; though many games feature puzzles, this game does a better job than most integrating them into the structure of the dungeon and the unique nature of the plot.

I doubt any other game offers a cryptic crossword and a cryptogram.

 
Some reviews online have praised the final "chaos" area, where you rescue Mara from her prison and coma. I'm going to go against these reviewers by saying that I didn't really like this area. It was, I admit, highly original, and Boswell gives what sounds like a compelling explanation in the interview: 

Yes, we loved working on this one. Another twist, it’s the exact opposite of what you expect at the climax of an RPG. You’ve almost got to the end, your party has built up all these immense powers, vast wealth and treasures, the greatest weapons and the most potent magic… and it’s all useless. Nothing can get you through here except your wits.

Entering The Chaos.

The problem, as I see it, is that it occurs at the very end of the game. If it had taken place before the climactic battle with Uukrul, I might have enjoyed it a little more, like the cryptic crossword. But it seems to me that the point of a CRPG is to build up power, wealth, and treasure, so it's a little unsatisfying to have a climactic challenge that calls upon none of the things you've spent the last 20+ hours achieving. I got a lot of experience and treasure from the Uukrul battle, and there was literally no point in returning to the shrines and mage's circle and shops.

I wish there had been a side-quest or two, and that there had been some options that changed the end of the main quest (what if I decided not to destroy the underground city?), but overall, the nature of the main quest and its interesting puzzles made up for an extremely compelling game despite these few drawbacks. Score: 6.

I wonder what would have happened at this stage if I had never gotten the object for Sagaris from the "pool of testing."

 
9. Graphics, Sound, and Inputs. We are still some distance from an era in which graphics help create real atmosphere to the dungeons, but the graphics in Uukrul were certainly good enough. Some of the cut-scene graphics, as well as the end game graphics, are among the best we've seen so far. The keyboard controls were intuitive (with available commands generally marked on the screen), and once I learned them, I generally didn't have to think about them, which I consider the sign of a good game. The automapping system is probably the best one I've encountered so far.

The big drawback, of course, is the lack of any sound; the developers didn't put so much as a beep in the game. It must be said, however, that in this era, I find most game sounds so bad that I turn them off anyway. Score: 5.

Really nice endgame graphics, I thought.

 
10. Gameplay. Two of my criteria for a very high score in the "gameplay" section are nonlinearity and replayability, and I can't say that Uukrul has either. The opening areas feel nonlinear, but once you start your quest for the six stone hearts, you're on a very linear track between sanctuaries. Since you have to take four characters of the same classes every time, there isn't much you could accomplish on a replay that you didn't accomplish the first time; in fact, since so much of the game is dependent on solving puzzles, a replay would probably feel too easy.

But the game excels in my other two elements for this section: difficulty and pacing. The difficulty level is just about perfect. I loved that it saves every time you enter combat, die, enter a sanctuary, or do just about anything else, and I like that there are limited places in which you can make backups of the game to ward complete disaster. Again, I want to quote Boswell on the rationale here:

Personally, I was never comfortable with the approach most computer RPGs take, where if a character dies you just go back to a recent save, then carry on as if nothing happened. I thought death should matter. It should be a setback. If you can erase your mistakes that easily, it encourages reckless play. Similarly, winning a difficult encounter becomes no great reward.

Initially, I wanted to have no save/restore facility at all, just save/resume. If you lose a character, he/she is gone for good. You can get a new character of similar level to join your party but the dead one stays dead. Broderbund vetoed that idea, and they were right. So we came up with the Sanctuary system, and it’s a really good balance between having a save/restore facility, and still having a strong incentive to keep your characters alive. 

I can't agree more. The only way I'm able to achieve this same tension--the same consequences associated with death--in modern games is by forcing myself to limit my saved games.

Taking advantage of the game's only "fail safe" mechanism.

The pacing is also excellent. It lasts just as long as it should, and not longer. When the end came, I was neither desperate for it to be over nor wishing it would last another 10 hours. This is extremely rare for me: no matter how much I like a game, I almost always think it's too long. Score: 5.

The Dark Heart of Uukrul isn't perfect in any of my 10 GIMLET areas, but it's above average in almost all of them, resulting in a final rating of 61, higher than everything I've played so far except Pool of Radiance and Ultima V. I think that sounds right, and if my postings on the game didn't seem brimming with this kind of joy, it's because of the fragmented way in which I've played it over the past month.
 

Uukrul deserves to be at least as famous as Dungeon Master. It isn't, and I suspect that's simply because it never achieved much of a following during its first release. Crooked Bee's interview with Boswell and Buis shows that the game was a labor of love for the two developers, who met at Auckland University in the early 1980s. Weaned on Wizardry and Zork, they hatched a plan for combining the dungeon-crawling aesthetic of the former with the puzzle-solving of the latter. Over a series of sessions lasting several years, they collaboratively plotted the unique dungeon areas between sanctuaries, with Boswell doing most of the actual programming. When they had a decent demonstration version, they shopped it to Brøderbund, Electronic Arts, and Activision. Brøderbund, looking to enter the CRPG market, snapped it up.

Unfortunately, as they relate, the game entered the market just as the Apple II was dying, and Brøderbund never effectively marketed the game. Game magazines at the time didn't review it. It only sold around 5,000 copies in its commercial release, making this one of what must be a few games that has more players today than in its initial release. Boswell and Buis had always regarded Uukrul as a side-project while they were finishing their educations; they eventually went into other careers and never made another game. And Brøderbund never did much else in the CRPG market; I think the only other game they made that's on my list is Centauri Alliance from 1990.

Even today, with good reviews like mine, Crooked Bee's, Saintus's "CRPG Revisted" blog, and Andrew Schultz's from 2010, the game doesn't get quite as much love as it deserves. There are no fan pages that I can find. There are two walkthroughs on GameFAQs, but in my opinion neither is very good, which is all the more surprising because one of them was written by the usually-reliable Schultz. It's definitely not his best work.

One of my main goals in starting this project and blog was to discover forgotten gems like The Dark Heart of Uukrul. Although the game has enjoyed a small cult following for years--I hope I at least introduced a few dozen new players to it. Try it for yourself with some solid chunks of time to spare, and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

From here, we move on to a game that everyone seems to know, yet which will be fun to play anyway: Hero's Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero. I see that my colleague, Trickster the Adventure Gamer, has also just finished a game that he started a month ago, so my understanding is that he's going to play Hero's Quest as a fighter while I explore it from the perspective of a thief. I look forward to comparing our reactions!