First, let me just remark that all the Online Remakes are once again available for download, and in fact have been so available since last Friday. The reason for the delay was the fact that I had mis-categorized Dransik as a remake, which it is not (though it is an online game).

From here, there are three main categories to restore: Spin Offs, General Utilities, and Joke Remakes. There’s also the Orphanage and Cemetery…but I’m (understandably, I hope) not in as much of a rush to get those categories up and running again.

Broadly, my plan is that the General Utilities section will be pared back, somewhat, because some of the downloads in there (DOSBox, for example) are hopelessly out of date and not particularly Ultima-specific anyhow. I’ll replace the actual downloads with links to the project’s downloads page, where appropriate. The Joke Remakes section will remain much the same as it is, though I believe there is one addition I need to make to it. And come to think of it, neither the Orphanage or the Cemetery will change all that much, if at all.

However, the Spin Offs section will be completely overhauled.

For example, I think the Inspired Works section needs to be expanded and given a little more of its own visibility. I also need to start tracking those projects better.

Moreover, I want to start looking for other projects that, if they aren’t directly inspired by Ultima, are at least inheritors of Ultima traditions in some way. These won’t be categorized as Inspired Works, but will fall under a new and somewhat related category. I’ve already begun looking at a handful of iPhone games, some of which will probably be featured. Sergorn Dragon has put me on to a couple of mainline PC titles that will probably also qualify. The Exult Total Conversions category will probably disappear, since two of its three entrants are remakes, and the third is basically an Inspired Work.

And to be fair, the Spin Offs category will not disappear entirely; there are a few projects which fit that label and will keep it as a result.

The area of the site that will see a lot of change, however, is the Engines section. For starters, it will be expanded to include discussion about 2D and 3D engines which are not tied to any specific game (e.g. Unity, Torque) and are available for free. It will also expand to include discussions of the advantages and disadvantages of using each platform, the pros and cons of each.

More than that, however, I want to expand Aiera into something akin to a “developer connection”, which exists as a place where past project developers can share created media content — 2D art, 3D models, music, and suchlike — with the Ultima community, so that other developers can make use of these things in their projects. Because really, it’s daunting at the best of times to take on the task of creating an Ultima-like game, and the sheer volume of stuff that a development team needs to create for its project can be overwhelming…and thus the death of an otherwise promising effort.

I’d like to position Aiera in such a way as to help aspiring devs get past those pitfalls.

Fundamentally, I think there’s more stories that could be told by the fan community. In part, that’s why I signed on to work on Return to the Serpent Isle…because it isn’t a remake, but is in fact a new story set in the Ultima universe, and which will strive to remain faithful to the universe that Origin built for our minds to play in. And I think there’s an argument to be made that indie devs can turn out amazing work given time and enthusiastic support from an engaged community.

And I don’t believe that Ultima is dead. My site traffic logs would seem to support that belief, as would the overwhelming response to the release of the Ultima 6 Project just recently, and to Lazarus before it.

So in the weeks to come, expect to see this all getting built. And hopefully, once it’s built, we can get a little Field of Dreams action going on here.

May I also offer an extra-special huge-frigging-big “thank you” to Aletys from the Ultima 6 Project for her supportive donation to the site. I will be adding a Sponsorship page to Aiera once I finalize the new design; expect that she will be right at the top of it.

Aletys, you might have made my wife cry, just a little bit. It was that stunning, and I am duly humbled by it.

For all you users of retro sound boards out there (or possibly users of DOSBox, which I believe can emulate AdLib support), the official patch to enable proper AdLib support in Ultima 8 is once again available for download.

Those of you who have undertaken to read the Bible in its entirety may be familiar with the fact that most Biblical “reading programs” do not recommend attempting a cover-to-cover read-through. Indeed, many such programs do not necessarily recommend beginning with the Book of Genesis! The Bible is a complex book, and reading its every word typically requires a fair bit of thinking ahead and preparation on the reader’s part.

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).

Produced by: Pentagram Team
Website: Pentagram
Releases:
* Pentagram (Windows) (1.6 MiB, 77 hits)
* Pentagram (OS X) (3.4 MiB, 42 hits)
* Mac LibPNG Libraries (253.1 KiB, 31 hits)
* Pentagram Source (5.6 MiB, 29 hits)

Pentagram Map Viewer
* Pentagram Viewer (Windows) (2.0 MiB, 40 hits)
* Pentagram Viewer Source (401.6 KiB, 27 hits)

What initially began as a map viewer for Ultima 8 has evolved into a full-on cross-platform engine remake in the spirit of Exult. Although no official demo has yet been released, there are up-to-date releases of source code available, as well as Windows and Mac OS X Universal binaries.

The best aspect of this is that Pentagram runs very smoothly and without an intense CPU load, unlike when Ultima 8 is run under DOSBox.

Okay, it’s been a while since the last update, and I trust that those Readers who are likewise recently married, or who were once recently married, can understand the heady intensity of the first few months post-wedding. Especially when there are “thank you” cards and Christmas cards to send out all at once!

Especially because some of my family members are getting a bit impatient over the arrival date of their “thank you”. We’ll leave the discussion about the lack of humility inherent in such a stance for another time, and possibly another place.

At any rate, it’s time for what will likely be Aiera‘s last posting prior to Christmas, so enough is enough — let’s get to the news.

Ultima V: Lazarus

Toltec Dragon dropped me a line to let me know that a German translation of this Dungeon Siege-based remake of Ultima 5 is expected to be released very soon. So all you German Ultima fans out there keep watch; this exceptional remake of one of the best Ultima titles is about to arrive in your native language.

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ultima 5 seems to be generating all the good buzz lately. Ranman let us know in a comments thread that development on his port of Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator platform is at 93.7% (probably closer to 94% now) completion.

And he’s managed to shrink the size of the game engine a bit as well, thanks to some compiler optimizations.

Lost Sosaria

My own Ultima project, Lost Sosaria now has a discussion forum. Come on by and drop us a line!

(and yes, O Reader, I’m looking at forum solutions for Aiera as well)

Exult 3D

Sam Matthews has been quiet on the status of his project for a while. However, Gunnar brings news in the Exult forums that this project to create a 3D engine out of the original Ultima 7 engine has progressed somewhat since the last time we saw it here on Aiera.

He includes links to a “slightly more official” patch than is currently available on Aiera. I have updated the project entry here with the new material. Please note that the new releases appear to require Exult 1.4 to run.

Pentagram

The Pentagram team bring news that work is progressing despite the lack of site updates. Specifically, they have implemented correct combat music, improved the Avatar’s attack speed, fixed some issues with rendering, falling and throwing, and improved the main menu to include support for direct loading of savegames.

Quite the busy few months it’s been!

They have also released new Windows and Mac snapshots, both of which can be downloaded through the project entry here at Aiera.

Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

I spoke with Marzo and Wizardry Dragon, and they both confirmed to me that while development is definitely low-key, work is continuing on The Feudal Lands, a sidequel to Ultima 7 set in the old Sosarian continent called the Lands of the Feudal Lords.

Project Britannia

The britannia_logic.dsres and britannia_art.dsres core files for this Ultima spinoff/remake engine system have been updated. Changes are as follows:

britannia_art.dsres – the Lazarus ‘Mario mesh’ has been added, as well as more graphics for the Journal system. A new Spartan helmet has also been added, as have some textures and icons for various equipment associated with Chuckles the Jester.

britannia_logic.dsres – party banters have been updated to allow for a lone Avatar, and an issue with non-breaking breakable objects has been corrected. Rain moods have been tuned, and some UI changes have also been made, among many other things.

Serpent Isle for NWN2

Although development on this promising-looking project seems to have slowed ever so slightly, developer Jaesun has nevertheless managed to finish the Moonshade Catacombs, and has uploaded some sample music (note: ALPHA version, very rough) for your enjoyment, O Reader.

Adventure Creation Kit

Chris Hopkins dropped me a note to let me know that his top-down 2D game creation tool has just been updated to version 2.3. This neat little utility is an MS-DOS program that can be run both under DOSBox or in Windows proper (although DOSBox is required for sound), and allows for the creation of RPG-type games in the graphical spirit of Ultima 4 or Uitlma 5.

The updated version can be downloaded through the project entry here at Aiera.

Forgotten World

Hawkwind dropped me a note to let me know that the Forgotten World team have released another screenshot of their re-working of the Ultima 9 engine. About a month ago, they switched to using the OGRE engine for graphics, and true to their claim that it would speed development along they are now able to present us with a screenshot of Britain from the air.

Click on over and have a look, O Reader — it is impressive, to say the least. So impressive, in fact, that I decided to use it as the project image for its entry here at Aiera.

Also, the reader may note that I have added Amazon content to the sidebar. This is intended to be a mostly passive way that any users who a) feel they would like to support the effort made here at Aiera, and b) do some of their shopping through Amazon.com, can ‘donate’ to Aiera. Any purchases made through the links here will garner a small revenue percentage for your humble administrator.

Finally, I have overhauled the tagging system on Aiera, so it should be a lot more stable. Instead of creating links directly to Technorati topics, though, they link to a list of all other similarly-tagged articles on the site here. This is mostly a convenience feature for users looking to quickly browse a particular topic.

A ‘tag cloud’ can be found most of the way down the sidebar, with text colour and size of each tag listed there determined by the number of times is has appeared.

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: Peter Veenstra, Sjoerd, Tommy Frossman, Ulf Wohlers
Website: DOSBox
Releases:
* DOSBox 0.73 (Windows) (1.4 MiB, 89 hits)
* DOSBox 0.73 (Mac) (4.8 MiB, 75 hits)
* DOSBox 0.73 (Source) (1.2 MiB, 75 hits)

A handy utility that creates a DOS-like environment within Windows or Mac OS X, allowing older DOS applications that don’t work well within modern operating systems to be played under those environments.

DOSBox can be a bit processor intensive, especially when playing higher-end games like Ultima 8, but most modern systems should be able to handle it.

A bunch of old, dead projects were added to the Cemetary today, more for posterity than anything. I’ve introduced a new article graphic to use for Cemetary entries for which I don’t have another screenshot available — you can see it here on the right. It is my intent that, to the maximum extent possible, this graphic will only be used in the placeholder capacity.

This is the part, then, where the reader looks at the newly-”buried” projects and says “hey, I have a screenshot of that one!”

I’ve also added a handful of utilities to the site, including:

• RDOSUMB
• Screen Thief
• Ultima 7 Save Game Fixer
• Ultima 7-friendly Mouse Drivers
• DOSBox

As well, I have added a specific sub-category for Ultima fonts.

There are a few more updates I’ll be making in the days to come, so stay tuned!

For those who are wondering, the marriage prep seminar that my fiancé and I went to over the weekend went very well overall. Essentially, it confirmed much of what we already suspected: that we’re a pretty good match.

WtFD