Ultima 4 is the Quest of the Avatar, where the player must strive to master the 8 Virtues and achieve the title of Avatar. Along the way, he or she will journey into the heart of the Underworld and discover the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom.
Written by a self-described “out of work programmer” who “spent [a] couple of months (while looking for a job) building Ultima 4 to showcase [his] online programming skills,” this is a really neat-looking Flash-based, apparently faithful remake of Ultima 4.
You can play the game at the Website link, above.
This is a flash-based, online-playable version of the Sega Master System version of Ultima 4, which Ergonpandilus Dragon (who informed me of its existence) asserts is “the best version of U4 to play.”
I was never a console gamer myself, but if you were and if you enjoyed/treasured this version of Ultima 4, then by all means do check it out. The controls seem fairly simple, and the game itself seems fairly responsive.
Sadly, the game seems to be quite buggy, and crashes often.
* xu4 for Nokia Smartphones (1.9 MiB, 238 hits)
* Ultima 7 - Exult - Program (1.0 MiB, 68 hits)
* Ultima 7 - Exult - Data (14.0 MiB, 58 hits)
* Ultima 7 - Music (mono) (12.5 MiB, 55 hits)
* Ultima 7 - Music (stereo) (28.7 MiB, 66 hits)
* Ultima 8 - Pentagram - Program (766.2 KiB, 35 hits)
* Ultima 8 - Pentagram - libSDL (16.2 KiB, 34 hits)
* Ultima 8 - Pentagram - Configuration (998 bytes, 27 hits)
These are actually just ports of other Ultima projects (linked below), but as I’ve never seen so many in one place at one time (and from one person!), they are classified not only as ports but as their own separate entry on Aiera.
The following projects have been ported to the Nokia 770/N800 internet tablets:
It serves to note that these ports are ongoing works, and it further serves to note that some of the projects that have been ported (Pentagram, for an easy example) are themselves incomplete. However, O Reader, if you use a Nokia 770/N800 internet tablet, and would like to be able to play some classic Ultima titles whilst on the go, this is likely a project for you!
Produced by: MagerValp
Website: Ultima IV Gold
Releases:
* Ultima 4 Gold (1.0 MiB, 250 hits)
This project is an improved version of Ultima 4 for the Commodore 64. Notably, it features optimized code and no disk swapping (1541 users will have to flip the disk once only), and the save system has been revamped (saving is now possible in dungeons). Trainers have been improved, and even little fixes have found their way in — the music, for example, no longer interrupts when you are walking around in Britannia.
Produced by: emuWorks
Website: hack4u
Releases:
* hack4u - Windows (541.8 KiB, 147 hits)
* hack4u - Mac (2.5 MiB, 132 hits)
* hack4u - Linux (1.0 MiB, 131 hits)
* hack4u - Source (289.1 KiB, 112 hits)
hack4u is a program to “edit the save games of Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar for the NES.” Any or all of the three games saved in the SRAM file (I trust that NES users who will be interested in this program know what that means) can be edited.
Produced by: Somebody…anybody know?
Releases:
* Ultima 4 Map Editor (75.2 KiB, 134 hits)
A utility to edit the graphic tiles in Ultima 4. Requires EGA graphics and the original shapes.ega file.
Releases:
* Ultima 1, 3, 4 & 5 Cheat (19.2 KiB, 353 hits)
A cheat program that can be used for Ultima 1 through to Ultima 5 (but not, according to its name, for Ultima 2).
Note: this update may not work with Ultima 3, and may also be missing the strength attribute. This has been found to be the case in DOSBox, at any rate, although at present it is not known whether the error is within the program proper, or whether it is in some way related to DOSbox.
Produced by: Shattered Moon
Website: Classic Ultima Online
Releases:
* U4 Multiplayer Client (2.6 MiB, 248 hits)
This promising reworking of the Ultima 4 engine does what U6 Online did for Ultima 6 – launches the classic single-player RPG into the realm of online gaming! It has become part of a larger project called Classic Ultima Online, which sounds as though its aim is to port several different Ultima titles into an online framework.
The project is currently in an alpha stage, and there is a client available. You can download the client from Aiera, or through Dennis DeMarco’s website.
To play: launch the client, specify u4m.demarco.com as the game server, and then create a player.
This project was formerly known as “Ultima 4 Multiplayer“.
Produced by: Andrew Taylor
Website: xu4- Ultima IV
Releases:
* xu4 - Windows v1.0b3 (1.1 MiB, 228 hits)
* xu4 - Mac OS X v1.0b3 (3.1 MiB, 155 hits)
* xu4 - Linux v1.0b3 (2.4 MiB, 137 hits)
* xu4 - Source v1.0b3 (410.3 KiB, 154 hits)
* xu4 - Zaurus v0.9 (1.9 MiB, 106 hits)
* xu4 - BeOS v0.5 (88.3 KiB, 127 hits)
* xu4 - Dreamcast (5.1 MiB, 130 hits)
Snapshots – May be unstable
* xu4 - Windows Snapshot (1.4 MiB, 150 hits)
* xu4 - Mac OS X Snapshot (3.3 MiB, 136 hits)
Andrew Taylor’s SDL-based re-creation of Ultima 4 is intended to be a cross-platform version of the game much as Exult is for Ultima 7.
And, since Ultima 4 is freeware, he (like many others) has also made available for download the original version (0 bytes) of the game. As well, there is a graphics update (0 bytes) available. The original game is now included with non-PC versions of xu4, but is required for Windows.
Produced by: Nodling Dragon
Website: Ultima Tech Info and Patches
Releases:
* Atari ST File Formats (2.7 KiB, 98 hits)
* EGA Driver Information (6.6 KiB, 85 hits)
* Bugs in Ultima 4 (5.2 KiB, 123 hits)
These three files from Nodling Dragon include a description of the Ultima 4 game data file formats, although only for the Atari ST version (u4atarist.txt), general information about the EGA driver that the game uses (u4ega_driver.txt), and a list of bugs and undocumented features of the game’s PC version (u4_bugs.txt).
Produced by: Nodling Dragon
Website: Ultima Tech Info and Patches
Release:
* U4Encode Source (4.2 KiB, 110 hits)
* U4Decode Source (13.8 KiB, 98 hits)
These two files allow you to de-compress (decode) or compress (encode) Ultima 4‘s game data files, which have been compressed using the formerly-patented LZW algorithm.
NOTE: the packages here include only the source code necessary to compile a command-line utility in each case.
Produced by: Nodling Dragon
Website: Ultima Tech Info and Patches
Releases:
* Replacement for avpatch (7.6 KiB, 197 hits)
Nodling explains: “You can’t install the Ultima 4 Upgrade under DOS, because avpatch.exe is a Windows console application. The new avpatch.exe can be run in DOS, Windows and DOS emulators.”
Produced by: Nodling Dragon
Website: Ultima Tech Info and Patches
Releases:
* Rune Font (5.7 KiB, 114 hits)
Replaces the Latin characters in Ultima 4 with runic font. There are actually two patches bundled into this package — one for EGA and one for VGA resolutions. Nodling points out that CGA isn’t supported yet.
Produced by: Nodling Dragon
Website: Ultima Tech Info and Patches
Release:
* German Keyboard Patch (2.9 KiB, 153 hits)
From Nodling’s site: “If you play Ultima 3 or [Ultima 4] with a German keyboard, the y and z keys won’t work until you remove the German keyboard driver. But that doesn’t really fix the problem, because now the y and z keys are swapped.
With this utility, both keys will work as they should. The program is compatible with DOS, DOS emulators and Windows 9x, but unfortunately not with Windows NT or XP.”
Produced by: Gary Thompson
Releases:
* Character Editor (39.2 KiB, 215 hits)
A character editor for Ultima 4.
Produced by: Centurion
Releases:
* Map Editor (38.8 KiB, 104 hits)
A map editor for Ultima 4. Be sure to read the included documentation, as the process of editing the map is somewhat complex at first.
This remake of Ultima 4 appeared on the Neverwinter Vault back in July 2003, although it only came to my attention some years later.
While not completely faithful to the original, this remake does do a good job of re-telling the story, and it seems that what few omissions/changes are present are a result of the choice of engine. For example, the moongates do not appear/disappear according to the moon phases of Britannia. While this can be implemented in Neverwinter Nights, it does require a good deal of tedious and time-consuming event-scripting.
More recently, this remake has seen a few bug fixes and updates made to it courtesy of Glanestel Dragon, mostly based on feedback from people who’ve played the mod.
Produced by: Lyrac
Website: www.lyrac.net (currently down)
Releases:
* Avatarship v1.3 (Module) (2.7 MiB, 161 hits)
* Avatarship v1.3 non-SoU (Module) (1.6 MiB, 128 hits)
* Avatarship v1.3 (Hak Pak) (48.0 MiB, 153 hits)
* Avatarship Music (18.8 MiB, 139 hits)
Zonker’s Neverwinter Nights-based remake of Ultima 4 is the first of the remakes to have reached completion. It should be compatible with most versions of NWN patched to at least version 1.32. There are two versions of the module, one that requires the Shadows of Undrentide expansion pack and one that does not.
