The Ocean of Origins (1995) (part 1/8)
Channel: Concavenator
Date: 01/02/2022

In 1995, the French videogame company Microfolie produced "L'Océan des Origines", a virtual encyclopedia on CD-ROM about the evolution of life in prehistoric oceans, from the Cambrian Explosion of animal life to the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. As far as I know, all versions of this game have been out of commerce for at least 20 years. What you see here is footage of the Italian edition of the game, to which I have added English subtitles and translations.

The encyclopedia is structured as a virtual submarine palace or museum, in which each room is dedicated to a particular sub-discipline -- compared anatomy, paleontology, systematics, and so on. Much of the enyclopedia presents its information in the form of virtual books, cinematics, and slideshows, with a few fully interactive sequences -- such as the one at the end of this video.

The entire footage is going to be split in eight videos. This is the first, covering the intro sequence, a sort of "prologue" presentation about Precambrian times, and the first part of the Library. Here we find a short history of the study of the ocean, a tool to compare the evolution of different anatomical structures over the cours of human evolution, and a dictionary of anatomy and etymology of scientific names. Go to 01:16 to see how the different rooms will be divided among the videos.

00:00 Statement
00:18 Introductive video
01:16 Tethys introduces the rooms
01:55 Beginning of beginnings
03:25 Navigator
03:33 Library and bibliography
04:00 The study of the ocean
04:54 Evolutionary pathways
08:22 Anatomical vocabulary
11:04 Etymology
12:36 Etymological game

PART 2 (species archive): https://youtu.be/-s6ZHLk2qRE
PART 3 (Proteion or hall of paleontologists, continental drift and fossilization, fossil restoration game): https://youtu.be/watch?v=oPqjf73C--4
PART 4 (Genealogical room, genealogical game): https://youtu.be/VDgBzosG0ek
PART 5 (Projection room, compared anatomy): https://youtu.be/aMi8q2jc4g8
PART 6 (the Aquarium):  https://youtu.be/B8w4h2BSq7Y
PART 7 (geological periods, paleobiological game): https://youtu.be/pvZiHMTscOk
PART 8 (time travel, end credits): https://youtu.be/i19z5hKVtAg

-- DISCLAIMER: this game is almost 30 years old, and what you see is the translation of a translation. Be careful before using it as a scientific source for any particular claim. See my Caveat at 00:05. --