The era of CD-based “multimedia” games and software in the early-to-mid-90s was a wild one. Combine this with the “coolness” of PlayStation, the experimentation of the Japanese game industry, and the popularity of psychedelic imagery and electronic music and you get Baby Universe.
Baby Universe is a digital kaleidoscope and music visualizer for the PS1. You start the game, swap in a music CD, and let Baby Universe go to work. There’s not much to “play” here, but a simple joy can be found in swapping between visuals to fit the song you are playing.
There isn’t a ton of information in English about Baby Universe out there, which makes it even more compelling to me. The game was conceptualized by Fumiya Fujii, the lead singer of the band The Checkers. Baby Universe is an interesting part of Fujii’s legacy, but it’s also a weird part of PlayStation history as well.
The non-kaleidoscope music visualizer in Baby Universe is nearly identical to the one in some models of PS1 consoles (such as the Japanese SCPH-7000 that I’m currently using). This begs some interesting questions that I’ve been unable to find clear answers to:
- Was the visualizer designed for Baby Universe and then integrated into hardware revisions or vice versa?
- Who actually designed the visualizer?
- Who made the decision to include the visualizer in Baby Universe and the hardware?
It’s compelling stuff, and I’d love to know more (to be honest, by research was brief and did not include watching any videos).
Some videos I captured for comparison:
Despite not being a game per se, Baby Universe is one of the most interesting pieces of software on the PS1, and one I highly recommend digging into.
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