I mention this here because a reader sent me a request over the weekend that is kind of an analog to the above. For some of us, Ultima is a game which predates us; perhaps we were born after the first one was released, or perhaps we did not come to be gamers until the series had achieved a level of maturity. This is certainly the case for me: the first three games I ever played, in order, were a Winnie the Pooh puzzle solver/RPG, Sierra’s Mixed-Up Mother Goose, and Ultima 6…all within the span of about 18 months. If I was 7 years old by the time U6 and I first met, I’d be surprised.

But it got me hooked, and I’ve played most of the other Ultima titles since that time. (U6 remains my favourite, though.)

The last Ultima game released a decade ago. Think about that for a moment. Even Ultima 9 represents a bygone era of gaming…or, perhaps, several eras; game-related technologies move ahead with truly alarming speed.

If someone wanted to get into the Ultima series today, where would they begin? Is it still best to start at the beginning, with Akalabeth, and from there to play through all the games in game-chronological order? Or is this not the right approach? Should a person instead begin somewhere in the middle, then move to earlier titles, and then play through the Guardian saga? And should one play through the originals? Or the remakes?

That is what reader Lance wondered in his email:

Between 2000 and 2003 I played a lot of Ultima Online on various free shards; before that I hadn’t played any Ultima Games. Since then I’ve put a couple hours into the following: U1, U7 (in Exult), U8 (in the other Exult-like project) and U9 (completely patched up and using the developer-released patch).

In each I lost interest: U7, U8 & U9, I was obsessed with going into every
house and stealing useless junk like candles, cutlery and bananas…which meant the locals would eventually get angry at me.

I’m thinking about starting with U1 again and working my way up to U9, but I’m not sure if I should play the remakes instead of the originals in
DOSBox, or maybe start with U9 and work my way down to U1.. or even put Ultima’s best foot forward and start from there and work my way to the worst in the series (maybe U7, then U8, U9, then U6 etc)?

To be honest, I’m not sure what sort of answer to give him, apart from recommending beginning with U6; that is the best starting point, as far as I’m concerned. From there, the order I suspect might work best would be: U4, U5, U8, U9, U1, U2, U3, the Underworld games (optional), Akalabeth (optional), and then U7 (both parts, in order). This balances higher quality against lower, modern against classic; to my mind, it should work for the average gamer.

But what do you all think? Recommendations can be left in the comments (please give explanations for your suggestions, as well).

(Note: for some reason, the download link for the Nokia smartphone port of Aklabeth (which is stored as a GZIP file) doesn’t work properly in Firefox, but right-clicking and using “Save target as…” seems to work just fine.)

The second is to note that I’m adjusting the way I do categories on the sidebar; whereas before there was a big solid block of categories, I intend to use the advance category management plugin that the site already has installed to separate the category lists based on the series into which the listed titles fall — e.g. the Age of Darkness, Age of Enlightenment, Worlds of Ultima, etc.

Akalabeth, being something of an “odd man out” (and then not the only one) gets its own sidebar element. Expect this categorization to expand as changes progress.

Also, the full version of a patch translating Ultima 7 to Spanish has been released. Following up on this lead led me to translation patches for Serpent Isle, Ultima 9, and Ultima Underworld about which I had previously been unaware, and these have all been added to Aiera.

• Ultima 7 Spanish translation
• Serpent Isle Spanish translation
• Ultima Underworld Spanish translation
• Ultima 9 Spanish translation

Additionally, the Ultima 6 Project Development Tools Package has been released, which enables the user to edit and compile conversations, edit game objects, edit game logic, and provides a host of other functions as well. It can be downloaded from the Project Britannia website, or from the Ultima 6 Project entry here at Aiera.

Other Ultima-related news I found whilst wandering through the Internet today includes:

Aklabeth

The web home of this remake of Akalabeth seems to be offline. I hope it’s just a temporary thing.

Ultima Underworld for Pocket PC

Conversely, this port of Ultima Underworld to the PocketPC seems to be back online again. Nice to see. That means that I get to move this project out of the cemetery!

Exult

This port of The Black Gate and Serpent Isle to…well…pretty much every operating system one could dare to think of…doesn’t look as though it’s been updated, by its website. But I noticed that the Windows and PocketPC snapshots were updated earlier this month, as was the snapshot for Exult Studio. All of these can be downloaded through the project entry here. The chief modification seems to concern a bug with multiracial Avatars.

Ultima: Iris

This 3D frontend for Ultima Online has been updated recently, to build version 2365. Linux and Windows source, and the Windows installer, can all be downloaded via the project entry here, or at the project website.

Finally, I was contacted by Yannick “Alcibiade” Kirschhoffer regarding a new piece of Ultima-related material he has produced. I’ll let him explain it in his own words:

I’ve been huge fan of the second Ultima trilogy. In 2003, I began work on writing guitar arrangements of most of this era’s music. I did the Ultima 6 score almost entirely, and some of U4 and U5 too. Then I compiled these in a songbook that I illustrated with artwork and quotes from the games.

It is available for download in PDF format at www.alcibiade.org

This is a handy little creation, beautifully arranged and attractively compiled into one volume. I’ve added a project entry for it under the category of “General Utility”, and it can be downloaded from there as well.

Well done, Yannick!

Produced by: Arnim Sauerbier
Website: Arnim Sauerbier
Releases:
* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

* [drain file 406 url Ultima 7 - Exult - Program] ([drain file 406 size])
* [drain file 407 url Ultima 7 - Exult - Data] ([drain file 407 size])
* [drain file 403 url Ultima 7 - Music (low-quality mono)] ([drain file 403 size])
* [drain file 404 url Ultima 7 - Music (higher-quality stereo)] ([drain file 404 size])

* [drain file 410 url Ultima 8 - Pentagram - Program] ([drain file 410 size])
* [drain file 408 url Ultima 8 - Pentagram - libSDL] ([drain file 408 size])
* [drain file 409 url Ultima 8 - Pentagram - INI file] ([drain file 409 size])

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:

• Akalabeth – a port of Paul Robson’s SDL version of the game
• Ultima 4 – a port of xu4
• Ultima 5 – a port of Nazghul/Haxima
• Ultima 6 – a port of Nuvie
• Ultima 7 – a port of Exult
• Ultima 8 – a port of Pentagram

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: Paul Robson
Website: Paul’s SDL Games
Releases:
* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

No, that name’s not a typo. Not an accidental one, at any rate. Okay, that name actually is a typo (see the comments, below). Who am I to argue with the developer?

At any rate, this is an SDL-based rewrite of Richard Garriot’s original classic.

Produced by: prmths
Releases:
* [drain file 240 url Version 0.1.0 (Windows)] ([drain file 240 size])
* [drain file 206 url Version 0.1.2 (*nix)] ([drain file 206 size])

This interesting collection of Ultima remakes offered a fully implemented engine for Akalabeth, and a partial engine for Ultima 1 as well. The current beta version is 0.1.2, and is hosted here for download. Akalabeth is fully playable now in UCR.

Featuring enhanced graphics and offering full compatibility with modern operating systems, this ambitious project aimed to re-create the first two Ultima trilogies, but has since disappeared from sight.

Produced by: Dimjon
Website: dimjon.de
Releases:
* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

An interesting little remake, this version of Akalabeth is designed to run on Java-enabled mobile phones.

You can download the files from here, or you can visit the WAP site of the developer from any enabled mobile phone: http://www.dimjon.de/akalabeth.jad

Produced by: MinerJr
Website: Akalabeth Remake
Releases:
* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

MinerJr has made a series of remakes of Richard Garriot’s classic original game, with upgraded graphics and compatibility with modern operating systems. His first remake has been released in its final form, as has a beta version of his Akalabeth 2K1 remake, which features more updates to graphics. Also released is the alpha version of his Akalabeth 3D Dungeon.

Produced by: Zulu-83
Contact: Zulu-83
Releases:
* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

This is a clever graphics expansion for MinerJr’s Akalabeth 2K1 remake that brings graphics from Serpent Isle into the game to replace the default tiled graphics.