Pax Britannia

Produced by: Andrew Owen
Website: The UDIC Facebook Group

Pax Britannia, as its creator describes it, is an Ultima fan game set between Ultima 3 and Ultima 4, which will presumably tell the story of Britannia’s unification and the breakaway of Fawn, the two Montors, and Moon. Your character in the game, summoned by Lord British as a diplomatic agent to drive the unification of Britannia forward, may be from Earth…but will not be the Stranger of the previous three games, or the Avatar of the games following.

The game is being written using a custom engine that Andrew is creating himself. As he describes it, the engine is “for a[n] 8-bit (Z80-based) computer that never had a version of Ultima released for it back in the day. It has 128K of RAM, a 256×192 pixel display (with two colours per cell — although I have a software workaround for that which extends it to 8×1 attributes in the view window), and no standard disk system (so I plan to do the whole thing as single load from tape). It has no video chip, so the screen is stored in main RAM. Oh and the extra RAM is paged in banks of 16K (hence the 128×128 map limit). I’ve solved the problem of the display size by reducing the view window to 9×9 (as per U6) and using a 6×8 font. You might well ask why I don’t do it on something more modern, but I enjoy the challenge. On the flip side there are emulators for the target machine available for just about any device you care to name (it should look lovely on the Nintendo DS).“

As far as media goes, Andrew has released images of all the in-game towns, as well as its tileset:

[Show as slideshow]

He has also let slip a few details about the character classes in the game (Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief, Bard, Druid, Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Illusionist, and Alcehmist), the magic system (a reworking of Ultima 3′s), and the party system:

You generate one character. There are 16 NPCs throughout Sosaria who may be willing to join your party. You can have up to 7 NPCs accompanying you at any one time. I know who the NPCs are and there will be some familiar if unexpected companions as well as the usual crowd.

The game is being built for a rather particular Z80-variant computer, so don’t expect a wide release on multiple platforms.

Trinsic

Produced by: brush_wood
Website: CoDUtility
Releases:
* Trinsic for Call of Duty 4 (35.7 MiB, 60 hits)

The author of this map for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare wanted to do a tribute to one of his favourite childhood games, and opted to re-create the area where Ultima 7 starts: Trinsic. Based on the screenshot, the map is largely faithful to the layout of the city in the game, although the author did add a sewer system and a couple of other little extras to improve the map’s playability in a first person shooter context.

Dark Disciples 2

Produced by: Dodgysoft
Website: Dodgysoft
Releases:
* coming soon…

The Dark Disciples series is a two-entry RPG series that prides itself on a comprehensive dialogue system, which arguably takes Ultima as its inspiration.

Dark Disciples features an unknown number of levels and areas to explore, and also ships with a rudimentary editor which can be used to create more such areas. The editor is evidently rather finnicky, however. The games also focus less on intricate, energetic combat, and more on the presentation of many non-combat puzzles to solve and interesting locations to explore.

Dark Disciples 2 boasts 130 levels and areas in its default installation, and also comes with a much more stable and versatile editor, which can be used to create new quests, levels, and suchlike. Indeed, the level editor can now be used to develop an entirely standalone campaign for the game!

Gameplay is non-linear and exploration of the game’s world is encouraged. A skill system comprising eleven skills is included, and the game boasts an enhanced monster AI and the addition of missile weapons, something its prequel lacked.

Also included in the level editor, apparently, are a number of pre-built events, some of which are apparently quite complex in nature. Thus, Dark Disciples 2 could probably be used to craft a quite decent homage to Ultima in a reasonable amount of time, and on a manageable scale.

To Be A Hero

Produced by: SteakTank Entertainment
Website: To Be A Hero

An iOS game which is slated for release next year, To Be A Hero features several different regions or continents, numerous career paths that your character can progress along, multiple dungeons, and an open world gaming experience that emphasizes player freedom.

Characters are fully customizable, combat is highly involved and allows you to target specific areas of an opponent. You can even bite an opponent…but this can be a two-way street, as some enemies are toxic to eat! The world is, apparently, huge, and some areas of it are only accessible by ship. Your character even needs to consume food and water on a regular basis, lest he perish.

Graphically, the game is 2D, and boasts rich colours, detailed character sprites, and a tile-based world. While many JRPG influences can be felt in several of the available screenshots for the game, some obvious Ultima 7 influences can also be found.

Consider the buildings, for example:

It could be a house in Britain!

Or the interiors thereof:

Especially the chair!

The idea behind To Be A Hero was, ultimately, to abandon a complex, flashy 3D engine and see what sort of game could be crafted if all efforts were focused on gameplay. However, the folks at SteamTank Entertainment are quite willing to admit that they may not have thoughtf everything, and as such have put up a ideas page where people can offer suggestions of systems, mechanics, or other game elements to implement. You can also like the game on Facebook and interact with the developers there.

Santcum

Produced by: Chad Sexington
Website: UO Thief
Releases:
* Undeniably Sexy: A Thief’s Tale (hosted externally)
* RPG Maker XP Runtime (hosted externally)
* BGM Folder (hosted externally)

An interesting-sounding project that has evidently been in the works for a few years, A Thief’s Tale is a 20-30 hour RPG, inspired by Ultima Online and using many assets and systems from the classic Origin Systems MMORPG. It’s still in development, however, having been updated as recently as October 2011. UO Thief describes the project as “a hobby project”, but over the years it has morphed into an RPG of substantial complexity.

Concerning the plot of the game, UO Thief says:

I decided very early on what my goal was. To tell the entire tale through the eyes of Chad never knowing the key role he plays in the greater story playing around him. Some of the supporting characters will be directly involved with the story, but they’ll never speak of it openly. I’ll either cut to a scene half-way through the conversation so the player doesn’t get all of it, then Chad walks in hearing even less.

Now the “real” RPG story where he saves the world/gets the girl/defeats the prophicized true evil spawn of hell? I’m not going to give that away just yet. But in truth, that’s not the focus of the game. Think of the “story” of Undeniably Sexy less as of an epic fantasy adventure and more of a series of kooky situations which uses each the story as an excuse to continue to progress.

A Thief’s Tale features 64 Magery and 10 Chivalry spells from Ultima Online, along with numerous graphical and audio assets from the game as well. Dungeon layouts will also be familiar to UO players, as will some towns and cities. The combat system is also — surprise, surprise! — cribbed from Ultima Online. The cast and characters of the game, meanwhile, are based on the misadventures of UO Thief’s Mondain’s Legacy guild.

It sounds as silly and interesting in equal parts. If you were an Ultima Online fan from way back, consider checking it out. It requires the RPG Maker Runtime Package to run. I’ve included the same download package above that UO Thief features on his site, but it may be Windows XP-specific. Please let me know, anyone, if this does in fact happen to be the case. Complete setup instructions can be found here.

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Produced by: The Retelling
Website: The Retelling
Getting Connected:
* Connection Guide: How to join The Retelling

Currently in an “open alpha” release state, Retelling: Exodus is a remake of Ultima 3 using Ultima Online. It features PvP and PvM according to Ultima Online’s Felucca ruleset, and role-playing is (of course) strongly encouraged. The map of Sosaria is entirely custom, and seems to be a very expert re-creation of Ultima 3′s game world. Pirates roam the seas, slimes split into more slimes, swamps poison you…many of the finer trappings of Ultima games are present. Siege warfare and player-created cities are also enabled, and houses (though secure) can be robbed under certain conditions.

I can’t find out much about The Retelling’s creator, but he describes himself in this way:

I grew up playing the original Ultima series, I have a lot of fond memories of time spent in Britannia. I also remember the theme of interactivity, a believable, consistent world (for the most part=) with a touch of humor. I’m looking to recapture the same feeling in an MMO.

To join The Retelling, follow the directions in this forum thread (also linked above).

Let me begin by answering Dino’s question about the latest Deus Ex game, Human Revolution, first: no, Warren Spector had nothing to do with the game.

That doesn’t mean, however (if reviews can be trusted), that Human Revolution does not recapture the magic of the original game in the series, getting everything right where the second installment in the series got it wrong.

Ars Technica’s review of the game is almost glowing, praising nearly every aspect of the title…but from the sound of it, the praise is deserved. The game seems intent on forcing you to make hard decisions and to live with the consequences, in both minor details (like inventory management and weapon upgrades) and major details (plot points, who lives or dies, etc.). The action in the Human Revolution is apparently quite intense, and requires no small amount of tactical skill to survive. And the story, though it apparently gets a little too thick with its conspiracies by the end, is nevertheless supposed to be quite gripping.

Oh, and it’s evidently an utterly gorgeous game, especially if played on a DirectX 11-capable PC:

Just. Look. At. The. Lighting.

I haven’t played it yet, and probably won’t get around to doing so for a while, so if any of you Dragons or Dragonettes have a go at it before me, please feel free to share your thoughts here.

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Produced by: SirBedwyr
Website: SirBedwyr @ DeviantArt
Releases:
* Ultima Dock Icons (3.0 MiB, 89 hits)

SirBedwyr, one of the many talented artists in the DeviantArt community, has produced a set of circular Ultima-themed icons, covering most of the titles in the Ultima series, “to remedy a hole in the popular circular dock icon pool” as he puts it.

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Produced by: Jason Ely
Website: Elderlands
Forum: Elderlands Forums
Twitter: @elderlands
Releases:
* Elderlands Alpha v0.7 (829.6 KiB, 58 hits)

Elderlands is the latest old-school, very obviously Ultima-inspired online RPG by former Origin Systems software engineer Jason Ely, who previously worked on such titles as Ultima 8, Crusader: No Remorse, and Crusader: No Regret. He also developed Dransik, although Pixel Mine Games has since acquired that property from him.

In his own words, Ely describes Elderlands as “a 2D graphical Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) that has a retro look and feel. The game provides a nostalgic environment that gives players fun and innovative game-play in a large and dynamic world.” It includes three huge continents, hundreds of monster types, three class categories offering a total of 14 playable classes, customizable character appearances, guilds, a barter/trade-based economic system, multiple minigames and casino-type games, and fully scripted in-game NPCs with homes, jobs, and schedules.

The game can be downloaded from here or via the link above; it is necessary to create an account at the Elderlands website in order to play.

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Produced by: Roman Zeitl
Website: Dynamic Games

Warlock – Tower of Fentrax is a CRPG primarily focused on the dangers of the world in which it takes place, with a decidedly player-versus-environment (PvE) focus. Far from simply subjecting you to an endless torrent of enemies, Tower of Fentrax aims to re-create many of the perils that real-world adventurers risk all the time:

What if you get sick on your journey through the world? What if the forced march of the last few days has destroyed your boots? Or even simpler: What if you are hungry and have nothing to eat? What if you are tired and far away from home? These (and many other) questions, just like the consequences of your response to them will play a major role in ToF.

None of which is to say, of course, that the game won’t pit you against plenty of more traditional RPG foes.

Tower of Fentrax is very much a classical RPG with a style that is obviously inspired by the earlier Ultima games. At present, the developer is using alpha tilesets to test the game’s engine and systems, but it’s reasonable to assume that he’ll upgrade the game tiles as development progresses.

Dousing a guard.

Produced by: J.P. Morris
Website: The Flight of the Maxima
Releases:
* Flight of the Maxima (Windows) (unknown, 95 hits)
* Build Instructions – Linux
* Build Instructions – Windows

From the project website: The Flight of the Maxima (TFM) is an unlikely fusion of Sci-fi, dark comedy and medieval Christianity.

The game can run on Linux, is intended to run on Mac and Windows (untested as of late), and both the games code and it’s assets are Open Source (BSD), which means you can modify and redistribute the game nearly any way you want.

The game is still very much in the earlier stages of its development, but already boasts an impressive array of interactive features. The story sounds intriguing, and you can be certain that it will convey and reflect the odd sense of humour that we all know J.P. Morris — DOUG the Eagle Dragon — for.

The Dark Unknown

Produced by: Goldenflame Dragon
Website: The Dark Unknown
Releases:
* The Dark Unknown Pre-Alpha
* Map Editor

The Dark Unknown is a browser-based tiled RPG in the style of Ultima 5, built by Goldenflame Dragon as a sort of “spritial prequel” to Ultima 1. Which is to say: it has no direct connection to the Ultima series, but will feature lots of little references and other things that most Ultima fans will nod knowingly at.

Goldenflame Dragon is writing his own engine for the game, and intends to keep the actual game itself fairly short. Ultimately, he wants to give players the option to either play the game online, via his website, or download and play it on their own computers. Whether that latter goal will be realized by means of a client or an actual standalone game is not yet clear.

At present, The Dark Unknown is web-playable only, and still very much in the pre-alpha stages of development. A map editor, with instructions, is also available.

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Produced by: Malignant Manor
Website: Completely free content for Exult? @ the Exult Forums
Releases:
* Dev Game v.012 (635.4 KiB, 111 hits)

This game is probably more properly described as a proof of concept, since it represents an attempt to create a game with the Exult engine that does not use or draw upon any of the original game data from either part of Ultima 7.

Malignant Manor’s most recent update to the project was in early February of 2011, at which time he released version 0.12 of the “game”. He has implemented Serpent Isle-style paperdolling, added status effect highlights and menu colours, added the necessary shapes to allow for characters of different races and sexes, implemented pathfinding, and has configured the game to accept both dummy files and manually edited files in the STATIC directory (which should serve to make building the game easier).

In other words, he’s making decent progress and implementing familiar game features as he goes, all the while avoiding using proprietary assets from the game(s) that inspired the creation of the engine he’s taking advantage of.

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Produced by: agentorangeguy, Zygon Dragon
Website: Ultima VI Remake
Forum: pics of my u6 mod @ the Exult Forums

Another mod for Exult that attempts to recreate Ultima 6 using the Ultima 7 engine.

A goodly portion of the mainland has been mapped out (apart from small details like the Fens of the Dead), and things like NPC schedules are working (although not fully usecoded as yet). A number of NPC conversations have been implemented, and the shrine-freeing quests are under development.

agentorangeguy plans to make the game a tad more linear than the original, and plans to use Ultima 7′s more advanced scripting in order to ensure that experienced players can’t just skip ahead by e.g. freeing shrines without first learning the mantras, or digging for Hawkins’ treasure without first finding all the pieces of the map. He also plans to add one or two additional recruitable NPCs to the game, and might even have a go at implementing a side quest which would let the player solve Quenton’s murder. He also plans to flesh out the presence of the gargoyles in Britannia and enhance the presence of the Royal Guard in hot and/or strategic locations, to give the game a more proper sense of a land at war.

Zygon Dragon has recently signed on with the project as well, providing it a better home on the Internet than MySpace, and assisting with NPC conversations.

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Produced by: alriddoch
Website: Worldforge
Releases:
* Ember Client v0.5.8 (Windows) (279.4 MiB, 117 hits)
* Ember Client v0.6.0 (Linux) (258.2 MiB, 95 hits)
* Sear Client v0.6.3.1 (Windows) (34.9 MiB, 112 hits)
* Sear Client v0.6.3 (Linux) (37.3 MiB, 96 hits)
* Sear Client v0.6.2.2 (Mac) (39.1 MiB, 116 hits)
* Cyphesis Server v0.5.24 (Windows) (19.5 MiB, 104 hits)
* Cyphesis Server v0.5.25 (Linux) (28.3 MiB, 97 hits)
* Equator World Editor v.0.1.1 (411.6 KiB, 96 hits)

Worldforge, which first emerged onto the scene back in 1997, bills itself as “the original open-source MMORPG project.” And that’s certainly a fair descriptor of what it is. It isn’t, strictly speaking, an MMO in and of itself, but is rather a framework for the creation, hosting, and playing of MMO-type games.

From the project’s site: “The WorldForge project is about building tools to allow the construction of online role-playing games. The original community came together over a decade ago, out of a desire to create a game that was better and freer than Ultima Online. But as the aims of the project evolved and became more ambitious, the overall goal changed. Instead of one game, we instead decided build a flexible framework that would allow everyone to contribute their own unique ideas and goals to the Worldforge project, allowing a multitude of games to be created.

Our core focus is the construction of a complete system with all the tools, technology, content and artwork required to build complex persistent online virtual worlds.”

At present, no actual game has been built with Worldforge, although a sort of persistent tech demo — dubbed Mason — is online and playable. An alpha version of a terrain toolkit, built with GTK, is also available. Clients are available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux, and the server software is available for Windows and Linux.

Some additional historical information about the project can be found here.

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Produced by: Tim Sweeny
Website: Joyous Rebel Screenshots
Releases:
* Joyous Rebel (927.3 KiB, 108 hits)

The oddly-titled Joyous Rebel is an Ultima-inspired RPG that was originally released as shareware in 1996. In 1998, it received several bug fixes and was re-released as freeware, possibly in anticipation of its sequel (which was never completed).

Little else exists in the way of media related to it; a few screenshots can be found, in addition to the game download which is now hosted here. I know nothing about its plot at present, apart from the fact that it appears to have a medieval setting.

Swords!

Produced by: Andy Panthro, Zeph, ItBurn
Website #1: ItBurn’s Ultima 6 Texture Pack @ ModDB
Website #2: Zeph’s Ultima 6 Texture Pack @ the Minecraft Forums
Releases:
* Ultima Textures for Minecraft v2.21 (2.4 MiB, 397 hits)
* Ultima 6 Textures for Minecraft (112.5 KiB, 223 hits)
* Zeph's Ultima 6 Texture Pack v1.2c (587.7 KiB, 272 hits)

As the project name suggests, these are packages of textures to replace the default texture set in Minecraft, which will make the scenery look a little more Ultima-like.

The majority of Andy Panthro’s textures are evidently from Ultima 6 and Ultima 7, and the pack is still something of a work in progress. The author welcomes your comments and suggestions, or submissions of reference images. This package is compatible with the latest version of Minecraft. Some screenshots of the textures in action are visible below:

There is also a texture pack made from just Ultima 6 textures, of which the creator is unknown. It also incorporates many of the object graphics as in-game inventory icons. However, it is out of date, and supports an early beta version of Minecraft only.

Additionally, there is Zeph’s texture pack, which is also entirely inspired by Ultima 6, and which includes modifications to the game’s UI that draw upon the scroll-like UI features from the original game. Zeph’s pack is compatible with the latest version of Minecraft.

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Produced by: dim, Andy Panthro
Website: Let’s see your characters! @ Minecraft Forums
Releases:

Ultima 7 Avatar

Ultima 6 Avatar

Ultima 5 Avatar

Three custom character skins for your avatar in Minecraft…which just so happen to resemble the Avatar from Ultima 7: The Black Gate (and Serpent Isle), Ultima 6: The False Prophet, and Ultima 5: Warriors of Destiny. The Ultima 7 graphic comes courtesy of Minecraft forum member dim; the other two come courtesy of Andy.

I haven’t the first clue how to customize the skin of a Minecraft character, but those of you who are skilled in so doing can grab the PNG image (small as it is) from under Releases above to use for your own.

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Produced by: Avatar
Website: Ultima Obscura – Covenants

This is an interesting-looking project, though still in the conceptual stage. It bills itself as “complete and total re-imagining of the entire linear canonical Ultima series with a dark gothic sort of twist” featuring a Sosaria that is “much darker than any you’ve come to know and [which] shares a completely different history. Things go bump in the night and all is not as it seems. The people and places will seem familiar but the similarity ends there.”

So in a sense, it intends to be a remake of the entire Ultima series, probably one game at a time.

Ultima Obscura will be split into three parts:

• Volume 1: Covenants – events and characters from The Age of Darkness (Ultima 1-3).
• Volume 2: Revelations – events and characters from The Age of Enlightenment (Ultima 4-6).
• Volume 3: Nightmares – events and characters from The Age of Armageddon (Ultima 7-9).

Various and sundry other details can be gleaned from its FAQ page, so it is known that the developer intends to use a custom-built 2D game engine, featuring Ultima 6- or Ultima 7-style dungeons, with a world approximately three times the size of Ultima 6′s. (The world map has been expanded to include Serpent Isle and Morgaelin.)

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Produced by: Ryan “Zerker” Armstrong
Website: Serpent’s Isle (Ultima VII: Part 2) @ Zerk Zone
Releases:
* Serpent Isle Map (77.5 KiB, 107 hits)

A recreation of the entire world from Ultima 7 Part II for The Moon Project, a science fiction RTS released in 2000 as a sequel to the excellent Earth 2150.

This is a multiplayer map for the game; players start locations correspond to all the major and minor towns in Serpent Isle. Most of the major landmarks from the game should be included, and player start locations should roughly correspond thereto.

This map requires The Moon Project to play. An older game, it can be obtained as part of a trilogy from GOG or Stardock/Impulse. (If you would like to support Aiera, buy from Stardock.)