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Archive for the ‘Orphanage’ Category

Posted by WtF Dragon On July - 14 - 2011

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Produced by: Zedex Dragon
Website: ZXU4
Releases:
* Map Viewer (11.7 KiB, 33 hits)
* Stones (4.9 KiB, 44 hits)
* Title (11.8 KiB, 35 hits)
* Vaporware (3.0 KiB, 32 hits)
* Virtues (9.5 KiB, 35 hits)

Some time ago, Zedex Dragon not only designed his own computer — the ZX Spectrum SE, an extended clone of the British Z80 — but also set about crafting a port of xu4 that would run on it.

In his own words: “I got quite far with the character generation sequence (which had to fit in a single 64K chunk of memory). Having designed the computer I realized that Ultima IV would be a great way to show off its hardware. I’m particularly pleased with the split-screen mode with the 12×8 hi-res version of the Ultima 6 in-game font I designed. The intro sequence graphics are ported from the MSX version, but the card graphics are original, although based on the set from Ultima 9. The game would have featured the standard U4 plot but with additional music (Stones during character generation and the Ultima theme on the title screen). I was also looking at having bitmap dungeon graphics as per Ultima 5. The idea was to make it the ultimate 2D version of U4. The development would have relied on porting the C++ of xu4 to C for the Z80.”

Sadly, he has since stopped working on the project, but the entirety of its source is still available in a CVS repository Zedex maintains, and an emulator for the ZX Spectrum SE is available. For the time being, the project will reside in the Orphanage, but if anyone wants to pick up and run with it, they will certainly find themselves able to do so.

categories: Orphanage
Posted by On August - 29 - 2007

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Produced by: S. Outman, B. Silva, J. Kind
Website: Blackrock at Sourceforge
Releases:
* Blackrock Client v0.2.3 (294.0 KiB, 136 hits)

While development on this project appears to have halted as of 2008, it is a -based project so all the code should still be online. What was supposed to be, and may one day be, was an client for , much as Galleon Dragon has created for .

More recently, Razimus was trying to assemble a team with which to resurrect this project. That attempt also appears to have stalled.

categories: Orphanage
Posted by On August - 29 - 2007

[image:81:l:s=0:l=x]Produced by: prmths
Releases:
* UCR Beta v0.1.2 (*nix) (2.8 MiB, 146 hits)
* UCR Beta v0.1.0 (Windows) (4.1 MiB, 141 hits)

This interesting collection of remakes intended to offer modern OS-compatible engines for the first six Ultima games; the developer got as far as a fully implemented engine for , and a partial engine for as well. The current beta version is 0.1.2 (or 0.1.0, for ), and is hosted here for download.

Again, only Akalabeth is fully playable in .

categories: Orphanage
Posted by On March - 9 - 2007

[image:19:l:s=0:l=x]Produced by: Moa Dragon
Releases:
* RPG-Maker 1995 Version (4.3 MiB, 111 hits)
* RPG-Maker 2000 Version (5.9 MiB, 116 hits)

Moa Dragon initially worked with Avatus Kingsman and Chlorthos Dragon on this remake of , which was supposed to have been based on the . There were two demo versions of the game released — an version and an version — before the team split up, after which Moa ported the project to the engine and renamed it .

categories: Orphanage
Posted by On March - 6 - 2007

[image:32:l:s=0:l=x]Produced by: The Red Mage
Website: NWVault
Releases:
* Pagan Demo (405.3 KiB, 112 hits)
* Demon Hak Pak (27.4 MiB, 99 hits)
* CEP (not hosted locally)

This remake of Ultima 8, which is in no way related to the Ultima 8: Exile project, appeared on the Neverwinter Vault in August 2004 without any prior indication of its being worked on. The Red Mage, its developer at the time, appeared to be making a faithful remake of the game, and the module had roughly half of Pagan mapped out at the time it ceased development.

The module requires one additional hak pak to play, as well as the CEP and both official expansion packs.

categories: Orphanage
Posted by On March - 6 - 2007

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Produced by: dforger
Website: Underworld 2 Revival
Releases:
* Shared Files (103.8 KiB, 90 hits)
* Windows Snapshot (Nov. 2, 2002) (100.8 KiB, 96 hits)
* Source Code (Nov. 2, 2002) (386.4 KiB, 99 hits)
* Manual (Text) (4.8 KiB, 96 hits)

This remake of Underworld 2 for Windows has not been active in some time, and seems only partly developed.

However, its SourceForge page is still active, and as such the latest (relatively speaking) build and source code are available. If anyone wanted to pick it up and run with it, they would be able to.

categories: Orphanage
Posted by WtF Dragon On March - 6 - 2007

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Produced by: Marc A. Pelletier
Website: LOW @ Sourceforge
Releases:
* LOW 0.4 (Windows) (304.9 KiB, 179 hits)
* LOW 0.4 (Linux) (107.1 KiB, 146 hits)
* LOW Source (512.8 KiB, 152 hits)
* LOW 3D Models (7.5 MiB, 168 hits)
* LOW Music (18.7 MiB, 186 hits)
* LOW Sounds (3.8 MiB, 163 hits)
* LOW Data Files (1,002.5 KiB, 175 hits)
* LOW DLL Files (Windows) (445.1 KiB, 166 hits)
* SDL Libraries (external site)

( for short) was a cross-platform re-write of “from the ground up”. Development on this project has unfortunately ceased, but its Sourceforge site is still active and there is source available for download, as well as a host of demos for different systems.

The latest version of this remake (dated 2002) features models of the characters.

categories: Orphanage
Posted by WtF Dragon On March - 5 - 2007

[image:37:l:s=0:l=x]Produced by: Jim Cameron
Website: TSSHP @ SourceForge
Releases:
* TSSHP v0.2.10f (Windows) (644.9 KiB, 100 hits)
* TSSHP v0.2.10f (Source) (396.6 KiB, 98 hits)
* TSSHP2 v0.0.001 (Windows) (292.0 KiB, 98 hits)
* TSSHP2 v0.0.001 (Source) (106.7 KiB, 87 hits)
* SDL Graphics Library (required)

While the link between System Shock and Ultima might seem…less than obvious to many, it is actually less tenuous than it seems. One of the major similarities is the engines used by both games – it’s the same one. Oh, and apparently Warren Spector worked on System Shock.

Jim Cameron was working to reverse-engineer this rendering engine, and in doing so put together a lot of technical information on the Ultima Underworld engine. He also released an open-source version of his work, before moving the project over to SourceForge. Note that you’ll need the SDL Graphics Library to use it.

The project halted development in about 2003, but briefly resumed development in 2008; a very early alpha build of “version 2″ of the project was posted to SourceForge (and has been mirrored here). Since then, there has been no word, and it is likely that the project has been abandoned. Still, its source code is available for all to download and continue using.

categories: Orphanage
Posted by On March - 5 - 2007

[image:62:l:s=0:l=x]Produced by: Kevin Fishburne
Downloads:
* Littoral v1.3.1 (6.4 MiB, 117 hits)

This was the first new remake to go public in 2005, and it died almost as quickly as it arose. This Morrowind-based project aimed to create a faithful remake of Ultima 5.

Kevin Fishburne, before the project website went offline, completed and released Littoral, an incredibly powerful terrain-generation utility for Morrowind that would have sped his development process along handily, had the project remained active. It is available for download.

categories: Orphanage
Posted by On March - 4 - 2007

[image:39:l:s=0:l=x]Produced by: Philippe Goetz
Website: Ultima Java
Releases:
* Ultima 1 for Java v0.0.9 (179.8 KiB, 114 hits)

This ambitious project was intended to be an OS-independent engine for Ultima 1, written in Java and run as a web-based embed. It would still have required you to own the game, and would have begun by asking you to specify the path to the Ultima 1 data files on your computer’s hard drive.

Initially, it seems the project developer intended to include the ability to run Ultima 1 through Ultima 5, although development on the project has since halted.

categories: Orphanage
Posted by On March - 4 - 2007

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Produced by: Peroxide
Website: Peroxide
Releases:
* Tech Demo v1.0 (3.7 MiB, 97 hits)
* Tech Demo v2.0 (18.0 MiB, 102 hits)
* Tech Demo v2.5.1 (Windows) (29.3 MiB, 143 hits)
* Tech Demo v2.5.1 (Linux) (28.6 MiB, 116 hits)

This project began as an ambitious remake of Ultima 1. However, due to the fact that Peroxide couldn’t get formal permission from Electronic Arts to make an actual Ultima game (not that this should have ever been a condition that Peroxide imposed on its development), the project ceased to be a formal Ultima remake in January 2003.

However, Peroxide kept their stunning custom-made 3D engine alive a bit longer for a new, somewhat Ultima-inspired project: ERA: The Arken Throne. This was supposed to be a published game, inspired by (but not actually) Ultima 1.

Sadly, Peroxide has shut ERA down. The team’s website contained, for a time, a message that seemed to promise that they would reappear, with the ERA engine still in development and ERA under a new name. Nothing seems to have come of that over the last few years, sadly.

Fortunately, Voyager Dragon managed to grab copies of the Ultima 1 remake’s tech demos. Thanks also goes to Dino the Dark Dragon, who found a copy of the 2.0 version of the game’s tech demo.

categories: Orphanage

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