Dominus (who should be known to anyone who frequents the Exult) brought to my attention, by email, an exciting new project that has emerged which is attempting to create a modern engine for the Underworld series of games.

That’s right! The Abysmal Engine is an attempt to create an Ultima Underworld 1/2 and System Shock engine for modern operating systems. (It will still require the original Ultima Underworld or System Shock data files to run.)

Abysmal is a successor to previous such attempts at creating an engine for the Underworld games, and builds on the work done by The System Shock Hack Project, Underworld Adventures and Underworld 2 Revival projects.

It is still at a very early developmental stage (the author warns that none of the games are actually playable), but seems to be making decent progress. And most excitingly, iPhone 3GS version even appears to be in the works!

And yes, I’ve created a project entry for Abysmal here at Aiera.

Tags: Abysmal, Abysmal Engine, Aiera, iPhone 3GS, System Shock, The System Shock Hack Project, Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld 2, Underworld 2 Revival, Underworld Adventures

Produced by: Julien Langer
Website: Abysmal Engine
Releases:
* Abysmal for Ubuntu (off-site)
* Abysmal for Windows (Installer) (1.2 MiB, 42 hits)
* Abysmal for Windows (ZIP) (1.3 MiB, 42 hits)
* Abysmal for Linux (AMD64) (1.1 MiB, 31 hits)
* Abysmal for Linux (x86) (1.1 MiB, 30 hits)
* Abysmal Source (1.1 MiB, 36 hits)

The Abysmal Engine is an attempt to create an Ultima Underworld 1/2 and System Shock engine for modern operating systems. It will still require the original Ultima Underworld or System Shock data files to run.

Abysmal is a successor to previous such attempts at creating an engine for the Underworld games, and builds on the work done by The System Shock Hack Project, Underworld Adventures and Underworld 2 Revival projects.

It is still at a very early developmental stage (the author warns that none of the games are actually playable), but seems to be making decent progress. An iPhone 3GS version even appears to be in the works!

Tags: Abysmal, Abysmal Engine, iPhone 3GS, System Shock, The System Shock Hack Project, TSSHP, Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld 2, Underworld 2 Revival, Underworld Adventures

If anyone out there has a copy of the Ultima Underworld for Dungeon Keeper ZIP file, please let me know. I don’t seem to have a working copy in my backups, and so cannot restore that particular download to its proper place and functionality at present.

This is also true, unfortunately, of version 0.3 of the Portuguese translation of Ultima Underworld. If anyone has a copy of THAT kicking around, please let me know, as the project’s official website no longer seems to carry the file.

That said, it should be noted that the rest of the Ultima Underworld downloads have been restored to working order.

Tags: Dungeon Keeper, translation, Ultima Underworld

I see that Dino’s Ultima Page has posted some news concerning a couple of new file releases from different projects. Notably, Ranman’s Ultima V for TI Calculators has released a beta version of that port for the TI-92 and V200 calculators. This download has already been added to the project entry here at Aiera.

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!

Tags: Aiera, Akalabeth, Aklabeth, Dino's Ultima Page, Dungeon Siege, Exult, Exult Studio, Linux, Pocket PC, PocketPC, Project Britannia, Serpent Isle, Texas Instruments, The Black Gate, translation, Ultima 4, Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima 6 Project, Ultima 7, Ultima 9, Ultima Online, Ultima Underworld, Ultima: Iris, Windows

Produced by: Iolo
Website: Traducción Ultima
Releases:
* Traducción de Ultima Underworld (512.4 KiB, 38 hits)

This is a full translation of Ultima Underworld into Spanish, one of a series of Spanish Ultima translations that appeared within the last couple of years.

Tags: translation, Ultima, Ultima Underworld

Produced by: ZIO Interactive Inc.
Website (Developer): clubzio.com
Website (for Purchase): PocketGear
Releases:
* Slide Show Demo (2.5 MiB, 41 hits)

This remake of Ultima Underworld for the PocketPC seems to work fairly well on most main-line PocketPC models. While the developer, ZIO Interactive, doesn’t seem to feature the game for purchase or download anymore (that I can tell — the site is in Chinese), the game itself is still available for purchase from PocketGear.

A “demo” of sorts is available, although it is little more than a slide-show of in-game screenshots and graphics.

Tags: PocketGear, PocketPC, Ultima Underworld, ZIO Interactive

I was contacted a while back (an inexcusably long while back, as it happens — my apologies!) by Zen, who passed along a bit of an addon module for Dungeon Keeper based on the first level of the Abyss in Ultima Underworld.

As Zen doesn’t have a website to host the project at for himself, he has made it available to the world via Aiera, and I have (finally!!) created a project entry for it. Check thou it out, O Reader, if you’ve still got those Dungeon Keeper discs tucked away in a drawer or closet!

Also, I have added a download for the Ultima 6 Project’s Milestone 5 release to that project’s entry, so if you haven’t grabbed it from somewhere else already, you can now get it here as well.

Also, other news, courtesy of Dino’s Ultima Page:

Ultima V: Lazarus

Cheerful Dragon has released version 1.29 of his various mods and bugfixes for this remake of Ultima 5. These can be downloaded either at the previous forum link, or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Seven Towers Exult Mods

Marzo has released updates to his mods for Exult, for both The Black Gate (Keyring) and Serpent Isle (Fixes). The latest revisions of both can be downloaded through their respective project entries here at Aiera:

• Black Gate Keyring
• Serpent Isle Fixes

Ultima: Iris

Apparently, the project’s developers took home first prize at the Dusmania 10 hobby game development meeting in Frankfurt, Germany. Congrats!

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman has released version 1.01 of his port of Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator. The up-to-date download can be found via the project entry here.

Exult

This Ultima 7 remake has been updated recently — or, rather, the unstable 1.4 version has been updated, as has Exult Studio and its accompanying tools. The Exult team’s plugins for GiMP have also been updated this month, and the whole mess of things can be downloaded via the project entry here.

EUO

This Ultima-inspired game has seen the release of version 0.16 of its rudimentary 3D client, which can be downloaded via the project entry here at Aiera.

Ultima Restoration

This comprehensive multi-project has released screenshots of the Kilrathi space station from their remake of Ultima 1. With this completed, they now have all the cities, dungeons, and space stations fully mapped in the game — which, if I do say so myself, is damn good progress!

They’ve also added links to a good couple-dozen Neverwinter Nights modules that I’m going to have to sort through in short order, so…well, it’s nice to know in advance what I’ll be up to for at least part of next week.

Also, the Wing Commander CIC team are attempting to back up what remains of the Origin Systems data library. They are looking for people with experience with this sort of thing, so if you’re one of those people who lives and breathes in backup tapes, you might want to check their project out.

Tags: Aiera, Dino's Ultima Page, Dungeon Keeper, Dungeon Siege, EUO, Exult, Exult Studio, Frankfurt, Germany, Neverwinter Nights, Serpent Isle, Texas Instruments, The Black Gate, Ultima 1, Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima 6 Project, Ultima 7, Ultima Online, Ultima Underworld, Wing Commander