AMIGArama Podcast Episode 99: Beneath a Steel Sky

[@jackfordmac]

Congrats on getting to 💯

[@Lorfarius]

Thanks but another episode to go yet :)

[@TheWorldsAddress]

I loved this game back in the day, I had it on the CD32 which was fully voiced. The way the voices were programmed in wasn't optimal, though, because there was a noticeable pause before every speech sample as it was loaded from the cd. The CD32 version of Simon the Sorcerer did it better, with loading pauses for the voice samples. I found a little surprise when opening the executable of the game in a text editor back in the day. It contains the following hidden message: --- At the beginning the programmers were happy and did rejoice at their task, for the Amiga before them did shineth and was full of promise. But then they did look closer and did see'th the awful truth; it's floppies were tiny and sloweth (rareth was its hard drive). And so small was it's memory that did at first appear large; queereth also was its configuration(s). Then they did findeth another Amiga, and this was slightly different from the first. Then a third, and this was different again. All different, but not really better, for all were psuedo backward compatible. But, eventually, it did come to pass that Steel Sky was implemented on a 1meg os-legal CBM Amiga. And the programmers looked and saw that it was indeed a miracle. But they were not joyous and instead did weep for nobody knew just what had been done. --- It seems the developers were disappointed with the performance of the Amiga. Still, I think they did a great job porting the game.

[@Lorfarius]

It was surprising how they managed to get Chris Barrie involved, shame he didn't do a sequel because he was always Simon to me. Some good voice work all round and one I might return to in future. I wish I'd stumbled across that text file, never seen anything like that before! Must have been the point where the PC was just improving all the time, sound and graphics were leaping ahead and Commodore just did little to take advantage of what they had. Then went bust!

[@lifeschool]

A great review. Managed to catch up eventually. The comedy is always refreshing and for me it has more going for it than many point and clickers.

[@Lorfarius]

Seems to have been one of my more popular ones. Really was something special and not long til the sequel is out!

[@Yesterzine]

Now you know I loved this, and if I'd had 42 minutes and a hell of a lot more research rather than a 5 minute cover feature based on the demo, this is basically what I'd have said :)

[@Lorfarius]

It's gaming gold! Go back and do another :p

[@Yesterzine]

Maybe when Beyond is a bit closer :)

[@Lorfarius]

@@Yesterzine Not far off!

[@Consoletronix]

Love this game, cool review man

[@Lorfarius]

Thanks, its a classic :)