148. Utopia, the creation of a nation

🎧 00:00 ericade.radio - Time for Flashback, tracks from the past - today with a stories from the retro past

DJ Daemon 00:00.146 It's time for another retro game story. We haven't done these for years now, so it's something that has to be fixed right now. And today's game is Utopia from Gremlin Software. Time for the creation of a nation in space, because space is awesome. First out today is Barry Leitch with the intro from the game itself. Enjoy!

🎧 00:06 DJ Daemon: It's time for another retro game story. We haven't done these for years now. So, it's something that has to be fixed right now. And today's game is Utopia from Gremlin software. Time for \"the creation of a nation\" in space. Because space is awesome! First out today is Barry Leitch the…

🎧 00:30 Barry Leitch - Utopia tune 1

🎧 07:26 DJ Daemon: The year was 1991 when Utopia was released for the Amiga, Atari and the PC. It was a bold decision, trying to cater to the Amiga platform. In this year it was in a steady decline, and the Amiga 1200 had not even been released. But I digress… This game was not the success Gremlin had hoped…

DJ Daemon 07:26.158 The year was 1991 and that was when Utopia was released for the Amiga, Atari and the PC. It was a bold decision trying to cater to the Amiga platform. In this year it was in steady decline and the Amiga 1200 had not yet even been released. But I digress. This game was not the success Gremlin had hoped for, but it was remembered by several retro gamers throughout ages.I will talk more about my theories as to why it didn't succeed. But we must start with the basics. You know, the game story, the gameplay, the graphics and the sound. But first, let's go to music. Here comes Shadabim and Element Wind.

🎧 08:09 Shadabim - Element wind

🎧 16:52 DJ Daemon: Let's delve into the game itself. I played it on my Amiga in the early 90s. It starts with a nice clip show telling the story of the man who you will play as in the game. He is unable to stop an attack on his colony and finally gives this unfortunate order to abandon it and flee. But this…

DJ Daemon 16:52.258 Let's delve into the game itself. I played it on my Amiga in the early 90s. It starts out with a nice clip show telling you the story of the man you will play as in the game. He is unable to stop an attack on his own colony and finally gives his unfortunate order to abandon it and flee. But you see, this was only a simulation and it had no solution. He heeded Sun Tzu's 34th strategy and fled.This was the correct action and he passes the test. I guess this is how the Kobayashi Maru scenario in Star Trek was actually intended to play out by the way. And you have your Picard style administrator. Yeah, he's bald. The game starts when he's assigned the role of a colony leader on an uncharted planet. The honeymoon however is soon over as the planet has its own set of insectoids already living there.And as history has shown us so many times before, only one species will be left standing. Time for some music, it's Melodia and a study in AOX Major.

🎧 18:04 Melodia - Study in a0x major

🎧 23:53 DJ Daemon: Alright, Utopia then. It plays like a mix of Sim city and a real time strategy game. This was before that latter genre even existed. So, you have to manage the budget, the enemies, the need of the people and the QOL. QOL? Yes, the main metric is the \"quality of life\". It's a value that…

DJ Daemon 23:54.742 Alright, Utopia then. It plays like a mix of SimCity and a real time strategy game. This was before the latter genre even existed. So you have to manage the budget, the enemies, the need of the people and the QOL. QOL? Yes, that's the main metric and it's called Quality of Life.It has a value that ranges between 0 and 100 and keeping it as high as possible is imperative. If it starts sinking, your utopia becomes a dystopia. Crime rates shoot up and if it sinks low enough, someone will put a price on your head. If you fail this way, you will meet the most mild mannered assassin ever and then it's game over. So...to keep your people happy while funding your spy network and preparing for the inevitable war that the whole game will be about. Well, you build warehouses, living quarters, power plants and air bases. Also, this is not the world of today. You have to keep a balanced budget. But we have to go on with some more music here. It's Dippy and Diskmag.

🎧 25:12 Dippy - Diskmag dance (opl2 mix)

🎧 30:06 DJ Daemon: The graphics is something nice. By the standards of the day, it was a little bit stale, but have aged well in my opinion. The buildings look nice and the graphics are your typical 16bit era pixel graphics. Your council is manned by aliens and some woman that looks mostly human. It's well…

DJ Daemon 30:08.632 The graphics is something really nice. By the standards of the day it was a little bit stale maybe, but it has aged well in my opinion. The buildings look nice and the graphics are your typical 16-bit era pixel graphics. Your council is manned by aliens and some woman that looks mostly human. It's well drawn and gives the game a very visual appeal.The screens show statistics, so you can fix the budget, know if your people are angry, and know what needs to be built next. I have played the game on my Amiga 500, and it was showing its age already back then. But as far as I remember, it was running smoothly. And I had a final cartridge too, which meant that I could pause the game and edit the memory contents on my Amiga.I amused my little brother Philip by changing some of the game's warnings to text you know. So attacks were named Philip Attacks and he loved it. Well that's the story so far. Next up is another song, it's JustOrb and De Honingemmer.

🎧 31:18 JustOrb - De Honingemmer

🎧 35:42 DJ Daemon: The music. You know this one, it was Barry Leitch and that was the tune we started this episode with. If your pod player can handle chapters, feel free to jump back to ít and enjoy some of the best Amiga mod music there has ever been. Not to be that guy, but the music eventually becomes…

DJ Daemon 35:44.034 The music, you know this one, it was Barry Leitch and that was the tune we started this episode with. If your pod player can handle chapters, feel free to jump back to it and enjoy some of the best Amiga mod music there ever has been. Not to be that guy, but the music eventually becomes tedious as you only have four songs in the game. One of them is pretty nice, but in...Well, what should we say an unimaginative version of Pachelbel's \"Canon D\". Where have you heard that one before? Well everywhere. There are even some rap songs using it Still until you get tired of it. It's nice to have it in the background and some music We are going on with ASIKWUSpulse summer bells in the space

🎧 36:35 ASIKWUSpulse - Summer bells (in space)

🎧 40:22 DJ Daemon: The game is funny and engaging. You must eventually go up against those pesky bugs. To quote \"Ron Perlman\" from some obscure game: \"War… War never changes\". This means first you must have your spy network reporting on what is happening and having them at peak efficiency is expensive.…

DJ Daemon 40:22.69 The game is funny and engaging. You must eventually go up against those pesky bugs. To quote Ron Perlman from some obscure game, War never changes. This means you first must have your spy network reporting on what's happening and having them at peak efficiency is expensive. Then you have to build an army. The war machine then attacks the enemies off map.and you get a report that is as detailed as your spies had the budget to do. It will take lots of time to route the enemies and they can and they will attack you, well, if you don't deal with them soon enough. We are going on with Juice and Cryptomnesia.

🎧 41:09 Juice - Cryptomnesia

DJ Daemon 44:35.694 Are there any bad sides to the game? Well, when the bugs have been eliminated the game goes on autopilot. It spams you with requests to fix various shortages. You must also fight the quality of life issues that pop up. Then there is not much going on.It has the same problem as SimCity did without its obvious solution. In SimCity you can always bring cool disasters to spice things up a little. Then you rebuild the damage until you get bored and bring another disaster along. I once blew up a nuclear power plant in SimCity 3000. The area was forever irradiated.Utopia does not bring any such solutions to the table. It just gets tedious all the time. And when you played all maps with different bug enemies, it does not offer that much of replay value. But in small doses, this game offers many hours of great nation building. Well, time to go on with Fear of Dark and Labrat funk.

🎧 44:43 DJ Daemon: Are there any bad sides to the game? Well… When the bugs have been eliminated, the game goes on autopilot. It spams you with requests to fix various shortages. You also must fight the quality of life issues that popup. The there is not much going on. It has the same problem as Sim City…

🎧 45:55 Fear of dark - Labrat funk (Mesdup)

🎧 49:24 DJ Daemon: So why didn't it become a classic and legendary game? Here is my take of it: it was released before RTS was a thing. RTS stands for \"Real time strategy\". And Utopia plays as \"Prototype\" for such a game. Games like Dune, Red alert and Command and Conquer gained popularity soon after…

DJ Daemon 49:24.888 Why didn't it become a classic and a legendary game? Well, the reviews were raving and a lot of people liked the game. But here's my take of it. It was released before RTS was a thing. RTS stands for Real Time Strategy and Utopia plays like a prototype for such a game. Games like Dune 2, Red Alert and Command and Conquergained popularity soon after and prospered in the time span between the mid 90s and mid noughties. It was also released to PC but did not seem to have that much of big impact. A sequel was released but I don't know much about it. The Amiga went away in 1994 so it was in a steady decline even back then. There were not much you could do to save it.Also, well, it kind of didn't really look like games like SimCity or Civilization. It was a novel idea that went under as it failed to be interesting in the long run. But for me it was easy. I loved the game. It was exactly my kind of game with a mix of management, strategy and a real time war. It may not have been a game that stood the test of time, but it kind of...built a legacy of its own. Music you say? Yes, let's listen to Shatty, a theme from Simon Belmont.

🎧 50:58 Shatty - Theme of Simon Belmont

🎧 54:22 DJ Daemon tells you that most of the music was made in 2025 and 2026.

DJ Daemon 54:22.602 It's time to say goodbye for now. We'll be back in a week. You're listening to flashback tracks from the past and I'm DJ Daemon. Most of the music you heard today was from 2025 and some of it was also from 2026. We are going on with Fear of Dark Hell freezes over.

🎧 54:42 Fear of dark - Hell freezes over

🎧 58:09 DJ Daemon leads you into the good night with the last song.

DJ Daemon 58:09.536 Leading you into that good night is the last song of the episode. That would be Nikku4211 and Aquatic ambience. See you in a week and remember that we are available on Ericade.Radio.

🎧 58:24 Nikku4211 - Aquatic ambience