SAVE MENDEL
Mebdel needs your help as he struggles to survive mind-blowing puzzles, elaborate mazes , and deadly guardian robots found within 5 stunning, real-time 3D texture mapped cyberworlds. By discovering the secrets of Mendel's environment, you can help him through the dangerous obstacles that threaten his survival and prevent his escape. Get ready for the obsessively addictive gameplay that comes with the only game character with a mind and will of his own.
Key features:
- Mendel - the first game character with a mind of its own.
- Advanced adaptive controller technology (NERMtm)
- Genre busting, addictive gameplay.
- Real-time 3D textured, continuous motion graphics.
- Exciting, hostile worlds with mind blowing puzzles.
- Active Panning 3D Stereo sound.
- Hardware Acceleration for all fully Direct 3D compatible video cards.
~from the back of the box
I have never been more entertained while pulling my hair out than when playing Galapagos: Mendel's Escape. Released in 1997 and developed by Anark - a company with a long history of 3D art design programmes and CAD-based tools - Galapagos was to be their only interactive entertainment title. Considering their technological background, there couldn't be a more fitting game than a graphically-impressive puzzle game centred on artificial intelligence.
Mendel is an intelligent robotic spider, trapped in the futuristic dystopian factory that built him. You have to manipulate his surroundings to clear a safe path outta there. This is done by clicking on buttons, levers and other objects within the fully realised environments, but it's easier said than done. Mendel moves on his own accord in this 3D world, learning different pathfinding skills through trial and error that may not go over so well in different situations. Every time he dies and re-spawns, he supposedly learns from that, and whether that is helpful or not is anyone's guess.
It's a hard concept to explain, but here's what I noticed when playing. My initial test run through the first level had Mendel more-or-less walk in a straight line. He was predictable and it was fairly easy to get him from one location to the next. When I played it again to capture footage, a couple of accidental deaths on a deadly turntable gave him the incentive to begin walking in circles. This made that turntable section an absolute pain as for the next five minutes he painfully wandered around the thing multiple times only to leave at the entrance again. At this point, it would probably have been better to begin the whole thing again, but I persevered for half an hour according to the timestamp, reloading a save countless times. This is no game for speed runners.
Some may see this as an inconsistency, but the seemingly random way Mendel learns is actually a feature. An occasionally welcome one that makes no two playthroughs the same. The more you play, the more he seems to develop a personality, screeching like a scared Artoo unit when danger is near, yet perfectly fine to ignore the safest passage forward. It's a deliberate design choice referred to as NERM (Non-stationary Entropic Reduction Mapping) and you can save and import these brain states at any time. I just wish I'd known this on my test run.
The NERM save is separate to the game save. NERM can be exported at any time, while the game can only be saved when Mendel steps upon a floor space resembling a swirling galaxy. This is the first of the design choices that really up the frustrating factor. There are many points in the game where Mendel will die multiple times of his own accord, and not necessarily by your mistake. You will then have to go through several minutes of game to get where you were and only NERM knows how the insect will be reacting this time. Couple this with a dynamic camera that often switches angles at the most inopportune of moments and you'll surely be bald by the time you reach the game's end.
These are design decisions I could surely like should a remake or spiritual successor ever exist, but as far as I know it doesn't. Galapagos: Mendel's Escape remains wholly unique. The closest game I can think of is Lemmings 3D, but there is no intelligence let alone of the artificial kind in those suicidal rodents.There is nothing quite like it. It will at once draw you in with its unique design and gameplay while simultaneously frustrate you to no end. And you know what? Both me and my hair implant specialist really appreciate that.
05.03.2023 - Version 2 - Changed DxWnd version from v2.05.71 to v2.05.04. This solves the intro Video issue.
Updated dgVoodoo from v2.55.4 to v2.79.3.
Patched game to official Version 1.2. This allows you to save anywhere.
File Size: 163 Mb. Install Size: 201 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ
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Galapagos: Mendel's Escape is © Disney Interactive
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me
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Thank you so much for this, I looked at the box of my physical copy just this morning! I'd love to play this again! - Does this include the official patch that, among other things, allows saving the game at any time and not just at save points? :)
ReplyDeleteIt isn't, but update coming imminently :)
DeleteOh wow, a super update, thank you!! I was aware of a 1.1 patch, can I ask you where did you find the 1.2 version? I had a hard time finding the 1.1 patch, and it was only through archive.org !
DeleteI was having trouble running this on my Windows 10 Home laptop, but in the end I managed to solve my problems, so I'm leaving these here, in case someone else has the problems I had:
- If you use a high DPI setting (like, 150%), when the game starts, the mouse will get stuck in the lower-right corner of the screen and so you won't be able to play. You can solve this in two ways: temporarily setting the DPI setting to 100%, or edit the RUN.bat file inside the DxWnd subdirectory, so that the second line reads:
set __COMPAT_LAYER=HighDPIAware RunAsAdmin RunAsInvoker
- If your laptop has an Intel Graphics Adapter that gets used by default, once the game has started it will *hang* while you're moving the mouse and resume once you stop moving it. I finally solved this once I went into the NVidia Control Panel and changed the default graphics adapter to the NVidia one.
The "other" mouse pointer still pops up after a few minutes of play, maybe I'll figure something out for that too :)
Thank you again Biffman, I'm sure this was such a challenge making this game runnable on modern Windows! DxWnd and dgVoodoo are quite interesting!
You're welcome! DPI and compatibility settings should be applied via the DxWnd settings, and in my experience setting it manually to either the DxWnd or game exes tends to break the program (you can't set the same thing twice). It will essentially ignore a good chunk - if not all - of the settings applied via DxWnd. If you've found that adding the Compat Layer line in the batch file works, then great, but it's possible that your first issue and perhaps your second may have stemmed from this.
DeleteAlas, the third issue still stands, and is detailed in the ChamberNotes.txt. I couldn't get the Windows mouse cursor to hide again once you've opened the menu bar on your first play session. DxWnd has options to fully hide it (making navigating the menu bar a pain) or fully show it, but I left it as app controlled as at least the beginning of the play session will be OK. It's not a gamebreaking bug and there's always the keyboard hotkeys to get around it most of the time too.
I had both problems I mentioned when I first launched the game without modifying anything: I couldn't see the mouse cursor, and when I kept moving my mouse to see if the pointer would show up, the game paused (even the narrating voice stopped speaking, only the background noise kept going).
DeleteOnce I did what I described to solve the issues, the game worked *much* better.
I took your advice and looked carefully at the DxWnd options: in the "Video" tab I did find a "Set DPI awareness" option that also does the trick, so thank you once more, that is indeed a more elegant solution :)
I did take the time to read the ChamberNotes.txt file, but I guess I got impatient towards the end, apparently I skipped *just* that paragraph! :)
Yeah, the compromise you chose for the Windows mouse cursor is the best one. Also, one can always choose to completely hide it and use the keyboard shortcuts to save, load and quit the game.
I still can't believe this game from 1997 runs so beautifully in Windows 10! At the risk of being repetitive: THANK YOU! :-D