Resilient sphere

Resilient sphere

A room full of prepetually bouncing resilient spheres on Talorus

Appearances

CollapseUltima Underworld II Resilient sphere, from Ultima Underworld II Mass: ??? Value: ??? ExpandUltima Underworld Resilient sphere, from Ultima Underworld Mass: ??? Value: ???

Resilient spheres are bouncy, red orbs that appear Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss and Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds.

Description

Resilient spheres will bounce when thrown, although their exact use has puzzled many an adventurer. These strange items can be found within Britannia’s Stygian Abyss, and they appear in great abundance on the strange world of Talorus.

Like many other objects in the games, they can be used to activate toggle switches from a distance.

Trivia

• Dr. Cat (David Shapiro) did the level design for Talorus in Ultima Underworld II, and the spheres that appear there may be a reference to his own game, DragonSpires. One of the earliest objects to be placed in the game were large red bouncy balls, and according to Dr. Cat, he and Manda Dee spent a significant amount of time manipulating these balls such that they filled a castle map before another player appeared and stabbed them.
• Though this object has little practical in-game use, it is an interesting object because it demonstrates the advanced (for the time) physics engine of the Underworld game engine. In typical games of this era, if you had for example a throwing knife with a range of 5, then when thrown it would travel perfectly horizontal at an even height until it reached 5 spaces at which point it would suddenly drop to the ground. These physics are wholely unrealistic and unconvincing. In Ultima Underworld, projectiles arc through the air as they are dragged down by gravity, and will bounce off surfaces in accordance with their angle and velocity. This resilient sphere is a good object for the developers to show off their work on the game's physics engine.
• "Super Bounce Balls" (and other similar names they were known as) were a common toy for the youth in the 1980s and into the 90s, so it was culturally relevant to see an object like this in a game of this era.