Colecovision RPG 2

Another Colecovision RPG screenshot.

Colecovision RPG

An RPG for the Colecovision. This is a mock-up.

VG Music: Ultima Exodus Soundtrack

I've recommended tracks from the NES version, but the Apple II had some amazing tunes of its own. Like the Commodore music for Ultima 4, these are more somber medieval sounding tracks.

Ultima: Exodus NES Box Scans

I love NES box art and the copy text on the back. Ideally, we'd all own complete in box sets of all the games we love, but its a damn naer impossible (and expensive dream). Especially since I bought Ultima 3 for 4 bucks from a friend who hated it. At the time I wanted to play Ultima Online, but 15 bucks a month was out of the question for my 7th grade hobo self. Nevertheless, Exodus remains one of my favorite games of all time and like a fine, cliched wine it gets better with aged cheese. Yes. That'll do pig. That'll do.

The box boasts 100 hours of gameplay. You just can't get that kind of quality shit for 4 bucks these days.





It's way too late to be playing Ultima

So what? No one can stop me!

Ultima World Map

Ultima is a huge motherfucker of a game. Sure, a lot of the towns are carbon copies of other towns, but because space was saved in this way the world itself feels vast and open when you're in the grit and the shit. Notice how they took continents and just spun them 90 degrees to further save space. Overall it was a brilliant tactic. 

However, Ultima II on PC is still my favorite for some inexplicable reason.

Ultima III: Exodus World Map

Ultima III: Exodus might look like it has a small map, and it some ways it is, but the developers really squeezed everything they could out of this relatively small space. Because of the line-of-sight feature, you can't always see everything that's on the screen. This makes exploring more exciting because you actually have to walk around the mountains rather than just looking at the edge of the screen. The world loops around the edges, but unlike Final Fantasy 2, you can't just walk around forever.

Towns and dungeons can go unnoticed by players for YEARS, without the help of a guide. The same thing happens inside cities, where the line of site blackout can hide gigantic buildings through clever placement of walls and doors. The towns are almost as big as the world map itself, and overall Exodus is a monster of a quest. 

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest certainly have bigger maps, but they've streamlined the RPG to the point where those world maps get eaten up quickly by new players.

Also, FF and DQ are rarely non-linear experiences (although they have their moments). Ultima is basically an RPG sandbox, allowing you to go anywhere, visit towns in any order, shuffle your party around, kill townspeople, steal, and generally have a romping good RPG time.

It's also worth nothing that Exodus was released 3 years before Dragon Warrior and 4 years before Final Fantasy. In those years, it's sad to say, Squaresoft and Enix made the world maps bigger, but the gameplay was undeniably dumbed down and the player was forced on a "quest" that was more like a "hallway with occasional doors." Ultima IV, released only 2 years after Exodus (and still before 1 year before Dragon Warrior and 2 years before Final Fantasy) upped the world map to an insane level, easily topping DQ and FF in terms of realism, complexity, and number of locations. Ultima IV also had a text parsing system which allowed the player to talk to NPCs and get clues on solving the quests. So why didn't other games follow suit with legitimate gameplay advances? Why do no games today use text parsers?

Ultimate RPG File Corrupted!

Unfortunately the game I was working on (Ultimate RPG) became corrupted, and I don't have a backup file. Bummer. I have a much, much, much earlier build of the game, but it's sad to lose so much new stuff. The only data that I still have is about 1/4 of the tileset and the old sprite set. Even the sprites I posted last time got deleted.

OHRRPGCE has been good, but I think it's time to change engines, possibly to Game Maker.

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny Tileset

The tileset posting continues! Ultima 5 boasts 512 tiles (compared to the 256 of Ultima 4), and one can easily tell the difference when playing both games. Overall, however, there is a lot of wasted nonsense like the pink "Shadow Realm" tiles, "sitting down" tiles, and the four-frames of animation for everything.

The class sprites are greatly reduced, no more Tinkers, Druids, Paladins, Wizards, Rangers, Fighters, Shepherds, or Bards... instead characters use either the "Rogue," "Knight," or "Wizard" sprite. Yet, with the lack of diversity, the artist uses space within the tiles more more effectively by filling in more space (so there is less black) and making everything look realistic through shading and eliminating the representation of unimportant/awkward sprite features such as necks.

As far as gameplay is concerned, I'm making good progress in Ultima 5, although some of the new mechanics are annoying at best. Picking up loot has become a veritable chore, and the DAY/NIGHT system is poorly implemented as far as I can tell. Basically there is nothing new to explore at night, and the towns and shops close down in the dark.

On the positive side, the player is no longer burdened with protecting his or her Avatarhood, and can lie, cheat, steal, run away from fights, and murder like the good old days of Ultima 1-3.

Download Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar for FREE (Legally!!!)

The Ultima IV tileset is enjoying surprising amounts of traffic, so I thought I'd follow up with another cool download. This came as a nice surprise, but you can actually grab Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar on gog.com 100% for free. It's hard to complain about free. They've also got deals on the other Ultima games as well, so check those out if interested. Don't listen to any haters talking about the games "not aging well." Those people can gtfo my internet.

The PC version is much better than the somewhat-butchered NES port, but I like the NES box art (pictured above) a little more. I suppose the NES version has it's charm, but it's still more of a curiosity than anything else. Thankfully I've had the PC version since the days of AOL, so I never bothered with the NES port.

The NES port of Ultima III: Exodus, on the other hand, is quite brilliant.

Ultima IV Quest of the Avatar Tileset

Last week I finally finished Ultima II, which allowed me to return to my 7-months-in-progress game of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Tonight, all I have to do is reach the depths of hell and recover the lost codex of the Avatar.

So in honor of this historic event I'm posting the Ultima IV tileset in all its glory. More posts on various Ultima-related escapades forthcoming.

Overall it's an amazing tileset that can teach new pixel artists a lot about economy and representation (particularly of environments). My only criticism of the graphics is the decision to use 4 frames of animation for the enemies. 2 frames per monster would have been plenty. Sorry it's slightly messed up at the bottom, that was a mistake I made when adjusting the colors to more-accurately reflect how they appear on a very old but brilliant 14-inch CRT monitor.

Pixel Art: New 8-Bit RPG Sprites

My newest pixel art; these dudes and dudettes are from a current project code-named "Ultimate RPG." Each one is animated to walk in place (similar to the Ultima games and the Japanese Dragon Quest 1). Also, each sprite has multiple pallet-swaps. Each sprite is being set up to have a variety of outfits in both black and white skin tones.

I have run into a development problem with hair color. Blonde hair looks like garbage on the yellow backgrounds (sandy areas), so those have to be changed. Similarly, I use a lot of black backgrounds so black characters don't look good with dark-brown hair.

I'm still in pre-alpha stages, just making some sprites, polishing the maptiles, and gearing up to create a full-on retro-style RPG. The battles and equipment systems will be similar to Dragon Warrior, but I want to offer some of the character customization of the roguelike genre. I also don't want to spend a lot of time animating multiple characters for battles, but perhaps that feature will get added. I'd rather spend the time drawing/creating great, memorable, and wacky monsters as well as having fun, trippy battle backgrounds.

Allowing the player to visit towns out of order will be a prime design. You could then pick up characters in the same manner as Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Either way, I'm off to play some Mother 3 and Lufia & the Fortress of Doom as inspiration.

New Deeds of Yore!

The long wait is almost over. New Episodes of Deeds of Yore!, the only TV show set in a pseudo-Ultima universe, will begin airing weekly in only 8 hours.

Visit http://www.deedsofyore.com/ for the countdown clock and all the official information.

But while you wait, go ahead and check out 8-Bit City's recent review of the series. If you haven't started watching you've got plenty of time to catch up on all 13 episodes in time for 2:00 a.m. or so when the new one will hopefully be made available for viewing.

All Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar Dungeon Maps

An elegant and compact set of all the dungeons in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Ultima 4 is probably the most imitated game of all time, and pretty much every RPG since has been a failed attempt at mimicking the greatness of Ultima 4. 

The Top 5 Things Wrong with Mainstream RPGs of the Last 30 Years

Five: Having a stupid fucking "epic" story. 

General Fuckface just captured the courtly guard and is leading an airship rebellion in an attempt to control the flow of magical resources powering streampunk army robots while young white guy farmer learns about morals and philosophy 101 while fucking up a clichéd, emotional romance.  Giant ragtag bunch of heroes saves the world and learns exactly one thing about themselves, solving many of the psychological problems haunting the characters. There is twist, after twist, after twist in this "epic" plot, but by the end of it you just wish it was over.

Four: Being easy as hell. 

Pretty self explanatory--if you're not dying you're not playing a good game. Notable exceptions: Ultima, Roguelikes, Diablo 1, Diablo 2, Diablo 3, Quest 64.

Three: Lack of Scope. 

Seriously guys, Ultima I has 8 Castles, 32 towns, and 26 dungeons to explore. What the fuck. Notable exceptions: Ultima, Quest 64, World of Warcraft, Everquest.

Two: No Randomization. 

Why is it many games continue to drive the player through the same dungeons over and over? I'm looking at you, Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy. Notable exceptions: Crawl, Nethack, all roguelikes, Diablo, Diablo 2, Diablo 3.

One: Having a party instead of one character.

Why do so many games have a party of adventurers? Are we so schizophrenic? Even Ultima eventually fell victim to this unfortunate trend. What seems like an avdance is actually a cleverly-designed artificial game extender. Battles take 4 times as long, and you need four times the supplies and gear. Things become watered down, and I don't even think game developers are aware of what a drag parties in RPGs can be. Notable exceptions: Roguelikes, Ultima 1 and 2, Moraff's World, Quest 64.

It's pretty simple when you look at it. Good RPGs will tend to have a single character, gigantic scope, and a lot of randomization. It almost seems like cheating, because any game made with this formula sounds pretty damn fun.

Instead, gamers get railroaded down a single boring path of 12-15 hours of time-destroying brainrot.

Adventures in Ultima

After watching Deeds of Yore, I was inspired to finally finish my Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar game. However, that didn't happen. I decided to play the original Ultima, although not on an emulator. Like most other dos games I'm running the Ultimas on an old Windows 95 computer which I've scrapped together. This version of Ultima is actually a port to DOS from the Apple II original. Some of the graphics have obviously been ripped from Ultima IV, and I was almost disappointed that the graphics weren't more primitive. The towns have a Roguelike feel to them, and offer you the chance to buy or steal items, armor, vehicles, food, beer, hp, and receive quests. No one town has everything, so you'll be force to explore the countrysides.

And the countrysides are vast. Ultima, quite frankly is a huge game. Without maps it almost impossible to navigate around. I've been lost for hours trying to find Lord British's castle. I needed a break from playing, so I'll post the story of quest so far.

It's late at night, and the only light is coming from the Monitor connected to my 1.78 Mhz machine. Ultima runs smoothly, slightly faster than it would have run in the past. Occasionally signs can be a challenge to read, and without an emulated dosbox I can't adjust the CPU speed. This Windows 95 machien is capable of running Dosbox, but the mouse isn't working and I don't feel it's worth the effort.

It's far too late to write a full, formal review of Ultima I. The game is famous, and I'm almost passing out at the keyboard so whatever. This is more about my adventures in this incredibly non-linear game anyway.

After many deaths, I got lucky and stole some great gear. I can attack from a distance and I''m not sure what the Reflect suit does, but it's expensive. Maybe it blocks spells as well.

This is just my old computer and my netbook. I may have been listening to the song from Deeds of Yore.

Every time you die, you keep your exp but HP and Food go down to 99. It's a brutal system because EXP makes the game get harder by increasing the overworld monsters.

Almost kicking ass now! I've got a some gold, food and HP. If I keep exploring this cave my numbers will only get better.

In this picture, I'm seriously into the zone.Repeated trips into the dungeon beef my character up in no time. The key skill here is "risk vs reward" as the player is tempted to remain in the dungeon for as long as possible, but it can be quite dangerous. Even on the first level of the dungeon it's easy to get lost and mobbed.

All the monsters use these awesome wire-frame designs. The pictures don't do justice to how brightly these things shine in an otherwise dark room. The vector graphics are a refreshing change of pace from the Ultima IV monsters roaming the overworld.

This skeleton is one of the better early-level monsters. The programmers even went through the trouble to generate 2 different skeleton sprites for variety.

The town of "Imagination." Not much is going on here, but at least I can steal some weapons and buy some food. The towns are all single-screens, and I love how you have to put up with absolutely 0 town bullshit. You get want you want and you gtfo.

Orcs lurk in the lower levels, and the difficulty increases dramatically.

I tried to push it to the limit and failed. This is one screen I've seen dozens of times already. You keep your armor, but you lose your weapons... You really don't want to die in Ultima.

Starting over from scratch isn't easy, but it's workable. However, the more I level up, the more monster appear on the over-world. Travel is beginning to be a problem.

Stole a Phazor from the King. Unfortunately it sucks as a weapon. 

After some extensive dungeon leveling, I'm back on a roll collecting massive amounts of gold. Only a few more trips down and I'll have the gold to get the super fucking awesome hovercraft, which will let me explore more of the world and complete some of the quests the Kings keep offering.

See it, want it, buy it, own it.

Cash rules everything around me.

Ok, I just got my hovercraft and it's time to cruise around killing shit and amassing sweet glory through adventure!

30 seconds later I lost the hovercraft.

In my fervor I parked the hovercraft at an island dungeon and subsequently died in said dungeon. I'm not even sure if my hovercraft is deleted or not... After so many deaths, which I didn't describe because deaths suck, and losing 2 hovercrafts (Yes, I actually lost another hovercraft a few hours before the one pictured above) I called it a night and decided to post the pictures I had taken. 

Well, it's the next morning and I'm probably just going to restart the game because I'm level 6 and the monsters are literally clogging the overworld when I try to explore. I'll have to redo a few quests, but in the long run I feel this is the better option. Because I restart with only 100 food, after one trip to a dungeon I need to purchase more from the towns. It's on this trip that the overworld swarms me with Necromancers, Dragons, Dark Knights, and Pirate Ships. It might be doable, but I'm sick of trying. 

So, readers, don't die in Ultima and consider taking breaks after you've been playing for 6 hours.

Ultima II Box and World Map

I beat Ultima today after playing constantly for three days. It's an epic journey which I'm editing and getting ready to be posted soon, but in the meantime I thought I would kick off the Ultima fun with these Ultima II box scans and world map.

Attempting to get Ultima II to run on a Windows 95 machine presented it's own set of challenges--it took me over 2 hours to get the game running properly and patched correctly. In the end I was successful, and maybe I can package my files together to make it easier for others to play this classic.

The early Ultima games blend fantasy with 20th-century technology in a way that wasn't really done again until Final Fantasy 7. It's certainly unique; nothing else feels quite like Ultima.

Another Unused Ultima: Exodus Sprite

Aside from the sprites mentioned in the last post, there is another unused NPC. A shopkeeper. Pretty cool. It's nice to see Ultima: Exodus on the NES with such a huge following (relatively speaking) that new things are still being discovered.

I ripped the sprite using Tile Layer Pro, but a fellow gamefaqers tipped me off to the video below. It demonstrates some HEX hacking of the ROM to display the unused NPCs (including the Jester from the other post).

Unused Ultima: Exodus Sprites

Here's something interesting I found today: some unused sprites from the NES Ultima: Exodus ROM. There was apparently a Jester and 3 enemies cut from the game. The colors pictured are examples of how the palettes could have been used.

Many NES and SNES roms have unused graphics hidden on the inside, but these guys were news to me. Thanks to the Sprite Database for posting this originally.

I recently beat this game, and it was epic. Haven't gotten around to writing up my notes into a blog post, but that should happen soon. Thankfully, finals week is over.

Song of the Week: Lord British's Castle

This week's song is not to be confused with Lord British's theme, another great song from one of the best NES adventures. This week's track plays normally in his castle, and is my second favorite song from the NES port of Ultima: Exodus.

Although the verses are somewhat generic, the chorus to this song accurately captures the sense of excitement, exploration, and discovery that made the game so famous. These two parts of the song form a tension which mimics the tension in RPG: peaceful towns and dangerous wilderness.

Give it a listen and let others know what you think about this song!