Though it has yet to produce any releases, this interesting-looking RPG maker software, presently under development, was announced on a short-lived thread in the Exult forums, and is obviously quite heavily influenced by Ultima 7 (indeed, it would appear to be using a colour-shifted version of the golden doors from Serpent Isle as its door graphics in the screenshot above).

Foody’s desire is to create an RPG maker that requires no programming knowledge on the part of the user, which suggests (to me, at least) that he will be coding all manner of wizards to assist with scripting events, encounters, and what-have-you.

And with that, I’m out sick for the rest of the day.

Now you know.

Anyhow, this being an Ultima website, this is the part where I tell you that someone has ported Exult (of course!) to Dingux. You can check out the project entry here; expect a release soon!

There’s not much information about this project that is presently available. Dingoo is a portable media player device, and Dingux is a custom Linux kernel for it that comes bundled with SDL and other media-friendly libraries. Exult has been ported to the system by SiENceE, whom some of you may also know as one of the developers of Iris2.

Presently, there’s little more than a YouTube video demonstrating the port in action, but expect to see a release fairly soon.

I’ve also gone though and grabbed the latest downloads (for Exult 1.4, Exult Studio, etc.) from the the project website.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. It really took too damn long to get these ones restored, given how important a project Exult has been, and continues to be. Apologies for the entirely unacceptable delay.

That’s right: I’ve brought back The Sword and Shield. It still uses phpBB, but now incorporates more robust anti-spam features. News and project entries that I post to the site automatically get cross posted to this forum, so that discussions can be carried on there in case the comment form either isn’t your thing or has become too cumbersome.

And best of all: you don’t need to register to post. That’s right: non-registered visitors can participate in discussions, in like manner to how the Exult forums operate. Of course, there is some mild CAPTCHA protection in place to prevent spam bots from doing their dirty work…but I know that many of you tend to view the whole “registering for a forum” thing as being an unnecessary pain in the ass, and I would generally agree.

Which is why I’m not forcing you to do it.

So feel free to carry on discussions! I’ve configured the forum for Ultima and general off-topic chatter, but if anybody has additional suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comments below…or in the forum!