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.

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.