It seemed worth a project entry.

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.

The isometric world of Syndicate.

So you can imagine that this news caught my eye:

A modern update of isometric cyborg sim Syndicate is presumed to be the surviving half of a planned two-game collaboration between EA and Starbreeze Studios. As noted by Superannuation, EA filed three new “Syndicate” trademark registrations in August concerning “video game software,” “electronic computer games” and, in one case, “collectable toy figures.”

Rumors of a new Syndicate sprang up over a year ago, and a document from the U.S. Copyright Office recently linked the Syndicate name to both EA and Chronicles of Riddick developer Starbreeze Studios. While the publisher has never made an official announcement, original Syndicate designer Sean Cooper stated in June 2009 that several “misguided” attempts to revisit the sci-fi franchise had been made since it debuted in the early 90s.

Syndicate isn’t particularly related to Ultima in any meaningful sense, though it did boast an isometric game engine that would be instantly familiar to any fan of Ultima 7 or Ultima 8. The linear, mission-based storyline was far from an Ultima-like RPG experience (indeed, I don’t think you could classify Syndicate as an RPG, at least not one in the same category as Ultima), although the squad controls were somewhat tighter than even those offered by Ultima 6.

Led by Sergorn Dragon, Return to the Serpent Isle is a “fan-made game based upon the legendary Ultima series and…crafted with the use of the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine.” It intends “to follow in and uphold the tradition of the Ultima series, it will lead the players to revisit the Serpent Isle which first had been introduced in Ultima VII Part Two,” Serpent Isle.

This ambitious effort isn’t a remake, but is in fact a completely new story set in the Ultima universe, and will tell a completely new tale set in a post-holocaust Serpent Isle. Several familiar faces from the second part of Ultima 7 will be making a return in the game, though many new characters will also feature in it.

Still, in the hope that they’ll push something out the door in the next little while, I’ve added Team Exalted Crown’s offering to Aiera; check thou it out!

(hat tip)

This is (was?) a promising-looking remake of at least the first part of Ultima 7: The Black Gate, produced as part of a game design course offered at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore.

The challenge of porting a 2D game of Ultima 7′s caliber — including its interactivity and living, breathing world — into a 3D engine (Neverwinter Nights 2, in this case) with a much more static world (at least by default) would make for an excellent primer in game design, and it’s just a pity that as yet the team has not released its work into the wild.

I’d hoped this trip afield would provide me with at least a few opportunities to update the site, but it would appear that I failed to factor three things into my plan:

1. My own tenacity when attempting to overcome a problem and the associated tendency to lose all track of time when researching said problem
2. The vagaries and frustrations of attempting to debug C++ code with the Mark One Eyeball
3. The utterly craptastic wireless Internet access at this here hotel

So I’ve only managed to get about half of the Ultima 7 files restored as a result. This is…er…quite far from what I’d hoped would be the case. Still, it’s some progress. I’m closing in on completion, little by little.

So…apologies for getting behind. I’ll see about getting the news postings up to date, at least; it’s month-end, which means a couple of projects will probably be publishing news of some kind.

Update: Okay, the Ultima 7 files are fully restored. I’ve just learned, by the way, that I will have to return to the place I’m in at the moment — Fort McMurray, Alberta — on or about the 12th of this month. Barring a sudden onset of Mass Effect 2 addiction, I hope to put at least some of my “off work” time toward the site here. I don’t foresee getting as consumed by work on this next trip; the program is now in a functional state, and any further revisions will hopefully be minor, and straightforward, in nature.

Now, the “Let’s Play Ultima” craze, which has slowly been making its way across YouTube and across the series, has reached my personal favourite amongst the Ultima titles. That’s right, Dragons…a young lady who goes by the handle enirya is playing — and broadcasting — her way through Ultima 6.

And what’s more, she’s playing the FM Towns version.

She’s only three episodes in at this point in time, but expect that number to grow.