Dino’s Ultima Page beat me to the scoop on these developments, but the news is big enough to be worth repeating. Ultima 6 was always my favourite Ultima title, and that particular remake is a project that I’ve been watching with anxious anticipation.

And as if that wasn’t good enough, there is yet more news from other projects as well; that’s what I call a good week, Dragons and Dragonesses.

Ultima 6 Project

Frilly Wumpus dropped me a line to let me know that Ultima 6 Project Milestone #4 has been released. This latest update to the Dungeon Siege-based remake of Ultima 6 features:

• New areas to explore ( Buccaneer’s Cave, Wrong, Empath Abbey and Minoc )
• New game intro which draws from the original classic game
• Enhancements to existing areas
• New plot details and other subtle refinements
• Numerous enhancements to the core gameplay such as:
  • A prototype of a customizable journal system so you can take notes on
    your journey
  • The “;” key now gives you extra information, such as reagent counts,
    projectile counts, etc.
  • New “Gameplay Settings” from the Options menu
  • Many more tunings and tweaks to the core Project Britannia systems

Exciting? Definitely. The latest milestone can be downloaded from the Ultima 6 Project Website, or from the project entry here at Aiera.

Forgotten World

Hawkwind wrote me to let me know that this ambitious, in-engine remake of Ultima 9 has released a sample of soundtrack music written and recorded by composer “Sounddreamer”.

“Time Travel”, the new music, can be listened to at the Forgotten Worlds website, or via the music player below:

A few more project updates come to us by way of Petrell at Dino’s:

Ultima IX: Infinity Eternal

Thepal has posted the first news update in about nine months to his project’s website to let us know that things are still alive and kicking (and just to keep us salivating, he’s thrown in a new screenshot).

The reason for the relative silence of the project, incidentally, stems from a couple of major developments in the real lives of the people working on it. Thepal himself got married (as a recent husband myself, Thepal, I offer my heartfelt congratulations!), and team member MartinLoki became a father (congratulations there, as well!).

It’s good to see that this promising-looking project is still being worked on!

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman is continuing his breakneck pace of work on his port of Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator — in his latest update, he puts development at over 95% completeness.

Latest improvements include:

• A “new look” for Ultima 5
• Leveling up & down now works.
• Magic points are reduced when casting a spell and are slowly restored over time. Fighters have no magic capabilities.
• Enemies can now cast spells too.
• Frigate sails are now working.
• The final quest of the Shrine of the Codex has been implemented.
• Pit traps are now working. If you step upon a hidden pit trap, you are dead — plain and simple — so be careful.

Apparently, Ranman has been told by his wife that the project will be done in February.

Nazghul

According to this schedule, Gordon McNutt plans to release version 1.0 of his Ultima-like game engine, Nazghul, on the fifth anniversary of its registration at Sourceforge — May 26th.

Also, in wandering through other project websites, I noticed the following updates:

Realms of Ultima

With Jason White joining the team, the RoU project has begun implementing an Ultima-style gameplay system for Neverwinter Nights 2. They are changing the character classes to the 8 core classes commonly seen in Ultima, and associating each class with a city and virtue. They have also begun work on custom critters for the game, and have even implemented a wine press.

Project Britannia

With the release of Ultima 6 Project Milestone #4, numerous updates have also been made to the britannia_art.dsres, britannia_logic.dsres, and pb_laz_comp_layer.dsres project core files. These can be downloaded either from the Project Britannia Wiki or through the project entry here at Aiera.

One of the great things about running this site is how the community members often jump in and try to help out by providing bits of news, or by spotlighting new discoveries they’ve made of new projects or ports of existing ones. It’s a valuable contribution they make, and I’m indebted to everyone who drops me an email (whether in person or via the contact form) to let me know what’s happening out there.

That’s been especially true lately; this entire update is populated with news that has landed in one of my inboxes or another. And there’s been a fair bit of news, to be sure!

Forgotten World

Hawkwind dropped me a copy of the second news update for Forgotten World, the remake of tag]Ultima 9[/tag] using the original engine of that game. He writes:

this Hawkwind again, from Team Forgotten World. We have just put up a new entry in our screenshot gallery, which is a render shot this time. It shows a scene that has been assembled using original Ultima 9 textures and models only.

And it has to be seen to be believed — it’s just a simple shot of a mill, with a dragon flying in the background, but it looks spectacular (nothing at all like it would have in Ascension).

Thanks for the update, Hawkwind, and good work!

hack4u

Tim Carlsen wrote me to let me know of the existence of this project, which is a program to “edit the save games of Ultima: 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.

I have created an entry for hack4u on Aiera, and version 1.2 of the program can be downloaded there for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (or you can get the source code).

Ultima III Gold

Tim Carlsen also informed me of the existence of this project, which is an improved version of Ultima 3 for the Commodore 64.

I have created an entry for U3 Gold on Aiera, and the latest version of it can be downloaded from there.

Infinity Eternal

Thepal dropped me a note as well to let us all know that his remake of Ultima 9 using the Oblivion engine has not perished. Apparently, he’s having some trouble with the domain name, an error in the renewal process that he is in the process of correcting with the registry company.

And in fact, the site is back online.

Ultima Engine Ports for Nokia Internet tablets

I got the most amusing email from Arnim Sauerbier concerning several ports he has made of different [tag]Ultima[t/tag] engines. Specifically, he has ported the following Ultima titles:

• 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!

I’ve added a project entry at Aiera for all of the above, and each of the original projects will also feature a download link.

By request, I’ve made the hyperlink colour a bit darker, a minor update to the site face that I hope everyone can appreciate. Minor bits of Aiera are still under development, and will be tweaked and corected periodically as I can find time to do it all in.

And also, the wedding is in all of nine days (October 20th), so forgive me if the next update is a bit late in arriving. Grace and I will be honeymooning in Greece until November 2nd.

Update: Courtesy of Dino, there is news of a couple more updates.

Black Gate Keyring

A minor update has been made to Marzo’s mod for Exult, fixing the death bolt spell’s performance and a bug with resurrection obtained from Lord British.

As usual, you can download the latest version of Keyring from its entry here at Aiera.

Nazghul

Gordon has posted news that he is planning to release version 0.6.0 of his Ultima-like engine very soon.

Also, Dino has found another Ultima blogger, Rotting Dragon, who is currently playing his way through Ultima 6 as he voyages through the Ultima series in view of the world.

There have been a few minor updates in the community in the last week-and-change, O Reader, including a few updates for download.

Redemption

Corv informs us, on the Redemption main page, that team member Spyder has posted a dev-diary concerning the development of Moonglow, including a look at some concept sketches and 3D models of a typical house in that magical city.

You need to be a registered user of the Titans of Ether forums to view the dev-diary.

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman informs us that there are some new screenshots of this port of Ultima 5 to the TI calculator available at the project’s home forum.

Pentagram

A new snapshot of Pentagram was released on September 21st. It can now be downloaded through the project’s entry here at Aiera.

Infinity Eternal

I’m hoping that Thepal’s project’s website is just having some technical difficulties, but it was offline when I checked this morning. I’ll keep checking back.

EUO

Not really an update, but Cat left a comment to correct a few errors in the EUO entry here at Aiera. For starters, although the original EUO did feature a U4-like tileset, the current iteration is completely original (although most monsters and traps will be familiar to Ultima 5 fans). Spells can be cast using either the Ultima 5 runes, or through a simpler list for the less-than-Ultima-proficient.

Also, the game now incorporates the LUA scripting language, meaning that the player can influence the dungeons to a greater degree through certain key actions. Leveling is done at shrines, with stats being upgraded along the same lines as happened in Ultima 6.

The game features over 100 NPCs and over 50 quests, with more being added all the time.

Now you know, O Reader! I’ll be updating the EUO entry with this information as soon as possible.

Project Britannia

A few updates have been made to a couple of the Project Britannia project files. The britannia_art.dsres file now includes the honey jars from the Ultima 6 Project, as well as some new textures for flaming oil, a new Spartan helm (requires the updated logic file as well), and a few new articles of clothing.

The britannia_logic.dsres file corrects some spelling errors on the character screen, and adds support for many of the additions detailed above. Some bugs with health regeneration and lorebooks have also been implemented, along with a host of other minor changes.

The project entry here at Aiera now features these updated files for download.

There have been a couple of bits of news from the remake community today.

UO to U7

Razimus’ project has been renamed to The Dark Key. No new media releases since the aforementioned artwork, however.

Infinity Eternal

Thepal brings us news that a new writer, Theron, has joined the project team to take some of the workload — at least as concerns writing dialogue — off of him.

(Frothy mug of ale: Dino)

There have been a few updates made in the Ultima remake community over the Easter weekend, including a few snapshot releases and some news announcements.

Ultima IX: Infinity Eternal

Thepal dropped a bit of news just to keep his project’s site fresh, and assures us that things are moving along. He has been working on dialogue for the demo — which will apparently feature 90 to 100 NPCs(!!) — and has been continuing with world-building. More music is also being created by other team members.

Seven Towers Exult Mods

The Avatar Pack was updated over the weekend with a minor revision that split the optional resources of the pack into The Black Gate- and Serpent Isle-specific versions; installation instructions have been updated accordingly. I have updated the copy of this mod that is hosted at Aiera.

Exult

New snapshots of Exult 1.4 and Exult Studio were released in the last few days. I have uploaded these to the site, and they can be downloaded from the Exult entry.

Project Britannia

The Project Britannia development team have released new snapshot versions of some of the game’s core files — britannia_logic.dsres and the Lazarus compatibility mod, to be specific. I have updated the Project Britannia and Lazarus downloads accordingly.

Ultima: Iris

Iris’ snapshot version has been updated to build 933, and I will add this to Iris’ entry on the site by this evening (remember: GMT -7 timezone).

Additionally, there is an AVI-format trailer available from the Iris site demonstrating the new engine in action. It can also be viewed on YouTube.

Worlds of Ultima: Lost Sosaria

One of the tilesets that is used on the project has been updated, and will be tested in short order.

WtFD