Voyage into the Unknown
In an era where games developers on the Spectrum wrote tight machine code
games to squeeze performance from the computer, Mastertronic released this
game that had been written in Spectrum Basic. Containing no audio, slow
graphic drawing, and undocumented controls, the game quickly became notorious
for its low quality in comparison with other Spectrum titles.
The inlay blurb states you are one of the survivors of Earth’s Great War and,
on hearing new that forces of the Death Star are about to make a final move
against Earth, you decide to take control a space ship you just happen to
find, intent on setting off and finding some all powerful Crystal, negotiating
a Maze of Total Blackness, locating the Death Star, and presumably destroying
it.
Unfortunately, the blurb also states the “your knowledge of space ships is
minimal”, and this is reflected in game. No instructions are present anywhere,
and even getting off the first screen requires pressing random buttons to
start the ship (“E”ngine, “P”ower, “I”gnition, if you’re interested). Things
don’t improve once you have launched and at most screen you have to guess what
key might do something, or what the ‘futuristic jargon’ shown on screen (“Time
Warp Chuck Out”, or encountering a “Buke”) might mean.
Voyage into the Unknown