showing 14 games
| name | publisher(developer) | year arrow_downward | description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akalabeth: World of Doom | California Pacific Computer Company | 1979 | [b]Compilation releases:[/b] - Lord British Starter Kit***A predecessor to Ultima's dungeons, its only purpose was to allow you to descend into a dungeon, fight monsters, and make your way through the maze.***This game originally came on a cassette packaged in a zip-lock bag, along with an eight-page instruction booklet. Richard Garriott simply 'published' a few dozen copies in zip-lock baggies at a local Computerland store where he worked. The documentation sheet with art was also done by hand. Only two copies are currently located in the hands of collectors. Richard Garriott kept one for himself and he also has a box with 12 more new in mint condition. 15 known copies. Garriott has promised to auction his boxed copies one at a time on ebay. Garriott's boss sent one copy to California Pacific Computer Co. They wanted to publish it on a large scale. (the California Pacific Computer's copy is unknown). MSRP: ? In 1980, California Pacific Computer Co. began publishing a 5.25" disk version. The artwork was only slightly improved and it still came in a zip-lock bag MSRP: $34.95 In 1981, Ultima (Ultima I) was released and at the same time Akalabeth was re-released in a traditional box and 5.25" disk. The cover art for this release was Denis Loubet.'s "Wrong Way" and the same one that was reused for Ultima II. MSRP: $34.95 The Lord British Starter Kit was a compilation of Akalabeth and Ultima released by California Pacific Computer Co. before rights were sold to Sierra On-line. In 1997, Origin released The Ultima Collection, in which Akalabeth was known as Ultima 0. That version of Akalabeth was done in assembly language by Garriott himself because there was never an assembly language version nor IBM-PC version of Akalabeth until then. [Zerothis] | labelimagesubject |
| Ultima | California Pacific Computer;Progame (California Pacific Computer) | 1981 | Hi-res color adventure, progressing from Middle Ages to beyond the space age. A masterpiece.***MSRP: $39.95 As the story goes, the wizard Mondain was intent on world domination. Over 1,000 years ago, he created the gem of immortality and granted him invincibility. Mondain is evil. The gem of immortality is evil. These are indisputable facts because it says to in the playbook. However, you won't be seeing Mondain doing anything evil in the present world and time. The player controls a stranger from another world (Earth) come to the land Sosaria to save it and its people from Mondain. The fact that Mondain is immortal and invincibility makes this a difficult task. So the stranger will travel back in time to kill Mondain before he creates his gem. Ultimatum was the working title of this game. The game also did not have the Ultima I title, it was just plain "Ultima" The first version of the first game in the The Age of Darkness trilogy from the Ultima series of games. This game was written in BASIC. The 5.25" disk, play book, reference card and cover art page came in a ziploc baggie. The disk and cover art page were branded "top of the orchard software". There was no map, cloth or otherwise. This package sold approximately 50,000 copies. This version was also published with a "Progame" label. Progame was a division of California Pacific Computer. In 1986, a machine language rewrite from Origin was released and called Ultima I. The Lord British Starter Kit was a compilation of Akalabeth and Ultima released by California Pacific Computer Co. before rights were sold to Sierra On-line. [Zerothis] | labelimagesubject |
| Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress | Sierra On-Line | 1982 | As the story goes, the stranger managed to successfully go back in time and execute Mondain for crimes he had not yet committed. Well this was upsetting for his young female apprentice who had access to time portals, Minax. Oops, loose ends. At first she escaped with her life but years past, she became a greater wizard than her mentor. She used time portals to arrange wars in the past and nearly destroy mankind in the universe, the stranger's universe, including Earth. She succeeded in dominating the universe and causing a nuclear war that destroyed Earth. Oh well. But, she herself left loose ends in her plans. She left one chance for the stranger to go back in time and defeat her before she was powerful. [spoiler=show different versions controversies;hide controversies]Due to mostly to intellectual property egest, There are [b][i]at least[/i][/b] 3 different versions of this game. Richard Garriott had searched for a publisher who would include a cloth map with the game. Only Sierra On-Line agreed. But there were problems with the business arrangement almost immediately. Sierra wanted more control and to pay less royalties than what Garriott was willing to put up with. To further complicate matters, Garriott had a full set of courses at college to attend to while Ultima II was being written completely in assembly (his first such product). Although the game would end up being more complex than Ultima I as far as end-users could see, under the hood, the assembly language, was greatly simplified from what was originally planned. Meanwhile Sierra did things unbeknownst to the very distracted Lord British. They ported games to whatever system they pleased, naming their own price in royalties in the process, and made cheaper maps and boxes. They made changes to the code. They also used the Ultima trademark and "Ultima of Lord British" on an unrelated product they were publishing that they re-branded "Ultima: Escape from Mount Drash". The relatively short business relationship left Sierra hold important art, properties, and code of Ultima II and of the Ultima franchise that would remain unavailable to this day. The "moongate" cover for Ultima II still belongs to Sierra. Origin would reuse its 3rd Akalabeth cover, "Wrong Way", for subsequent releases of Ultima II. Other things behind the scenes, such as ported versions were also lost. Origin eventually bought all code of Ultima II back from Sierra and began a remake version of Ultima II (like their Ultima I release). Every version of Ultima II dated 1989 or later is this remake version. But there's a catch. Some of the files were corrupted and the game is unbeatable. Origin for a time provided patches on the website [b]for a fee[/b], to fix the problem. These days one needs to find the patches on fan sites.[/spoiler] [spoiler=show spoiler/location controversy;hide spoiler/location controversy]Ultima II is set on Earth and the Sol system. Later Ultimas tell the story as happening in Sosaria. Its noted that Minax and the stranger were both messing around with space-time. Regardless of the explanation, the official condition is this: it happened on Sosaria.[/spoiler] Ultima II for Apple ][ comes in one of three different packages. 1. An 8.5"x11" box, 19 page instruction book, and 22"x17" cloth map. 2, An 6"x9" box, Ultima II book, 17"x22 cloth map, and reference card. Or an 6"x9" box, Ultima II book, 16"x12 cloth map, and a reference card. All three contain two 5.25" disks. [Zerothis] | labelimagesubject |
| Ring Quest | Penguin Software;Origin Systems;Electronic Arts (author;Origin Systems) | 1983 | Dallas Snell worked on this game that was published by Penguin Software. Later he would work for Origin Systems who would republish the game with new materials. Origin Systems would of course later be surrendered to the Destroyer of Worlds. This game is the direct sequel to [i]The Quest[/i]. The character of Gorn, from this game, would reaper in the some of the Ultima games. The is a text-adventure with graphics. This is only text-adventure ever published by Origin Systems. | labelimageminimize |
| Ultima III: Exodus | Origin;Ediciel Matra et Hachette (Origin) | 1983 | [52]*** [48]*** [48]*** [48]***[media=youtube]ZyRwHJobAVE[/media]***Comes on one 5.25" Disk, 2 sides. Ultima III - Exodus Construction Set is an unofficial editor released by Dan Gartung in 1984. This game was included in the Ultima Trilogy package. | labelimageminimize |
| Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar | Origin | 1985 | [52]*** [48]***Comes on two 5.25" disks. The Ultima series continued to innovate with the release of each game in the series. With this 4th game, the genre was taken to bran new places. There is no evil big bad enemy to defeat, and the point of the game is not to take advantage of people to get stuff to go defeat the enemy. Rather, the point of the game is for the main character to become a champion of virtue. The goals are literally honesty, humility, honor, spirituality, valor, justice, compassion, sacrifice, courage, truth, and love. Actions, inactions, even words can have less than apparent unhelpful or helpful consequences. Yes, there are still monsters to fight and treasures to find, but this makes up less than 1/8th of the game and the care and purpose in handling these things is more important than the end result. The [i]Ultima IV Construction Set[/i], [b]not official[/b], was available not long after the game's release. While the title would suggest it is a legitimate level editor, the package is in fact an illegal bootleg of Ultima IV. It even includes digital versions of all materials of the game. This overly complete violation of copyright does also include a level editor. [Zerothis] | labelimagesubject |
| Ultimore: A Divided World | Backstreet Software | 1985 | Comes on one 5.25" Disk. Start U3 normally and when instructed to insert the scenario disk, insert the World Divided disk. In 1985 Joel Fenton created 5 add-ons for Ultima III Joel Fenton's Ultimore Utility Disk was found and uploaded to the web in 2006. Joel Fenton was voluntarily found in 2014. More to come... | labelminimizeminimize |
| Ultimore: Egypt | Backstreet Software | 1985 | Comes on one 5.25" Disk. In 1985 Joel Fenton created 5 add-ons for Ultima III Joel Fenton's Ultimore Utility Disk was found and uploaded to the web in 2006. Joel Fenton was voluntarily found in 2014. More to come... | labelminimizeminimize |
| Ultimore: Pirate World | Backstreet Software | 1985 | Comes on one 5.25" Disk. In 1985 Joel Fenton created 5 add-ons for Ultima III Joel Fenton's Ultimore Utility Disk was found and uploaded to the web in 2006. Joel Fenton was voluntarily found in 2014. More to come... | labelminimizeminimize |
| Ultimore: Rule Of The Slave Lords | Backstreet Software | 1985 | Comes on one 5.25" Disk. In 1985 Joel Fenton created 5 add-ons for Ultima III Joel Fenton's Ultimore Utility Disk was found and uploaded to the web in 2006. Joel Fenton was voluntarily found in 2014. More to come... | labelminimizeminimize |
| Ultimore: Spaceship Crash | Backstreet Software | 1985 | Comes on one 5.25" Disk. In 1985 Joel Fenton created 5 add-ons for Ultima III Joel Fenton's Ultimore Utility Disk was found and uploaded to the web in 2006. Joel Fenton was voluntarily found in 2014. More to come... | labelminimizeminimize |
| Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness | Origin | 1986 | MSRP: $39.95 As the story goes, the wizard Mondain was intent on world domination. Over 1,000 years ago, he created the gem of immortality and granted him invincibility. Mondain is evil. The gem of immortality is evil. These are indisputable facts because it says to in the playbook. However, you won't be seeing Mondain doing anything evil in the present world and time. The player controls a stranger from another world (Earth) come to the land Sosaria to save it and its people from Mondain. The fact that Mondain is immortal and invincibility makes this a difficult task. So the stranger will travel back in time to kill Mondain before he creates his gem. A remake of the first game in the The Age of Darkness trilogy from the Ultima series of games. This is the version included with the Ultima Trilogy package. Origin rewrote the original Ultima in assembly language and updated the graphics. Some minor changes to place and people names were also made. This version would be ported to many other platforms and the various collection packages included this version or a port of this version. The game did not have the "Age of Darkness" title, it was just plain "Ultima I". But a book was includes with the title "The First Age of Darkness". In the box for this version was the 5.25" disk, The First Age of Darkness book, player reference card, four cardboard maps, and a cloth bag of coins, 1 gold, 3 silver, 1 copper (not the real minerals). This version was published by Origin themselves. [Zerothis] | labelimagesubject |
| Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny | Origin | 1987 | [media=youtube]bO6Jappcl30[/media]*** [49]*** [52]***Comes on four 5.25" disks (8 sides). Can optionally use one or two Mockingboard cards to produce up to 8 channels of stereo sound. Use of sound hardware requires 128K RAM. Otherwise the game has a minimum requirement of 64K RAM. Game box and materials claim "Apple II" compatibility but as it requires 64K RAM this seems to rule out the original Apple II with it's 48K limit. An Apple II plus could be upgraded to meet the RAM requirement and seems a reasonable minimum system. However, there are Slot 0 cards that will upgrade an original Apple II allowing for compatibility of games that must access more RAM and/or ROM functions that were not otherwise possible in the original Apple II. These option would cost many thousands of dollars. Since the game was designed for the possibility of 2 Mockingboards, perhaps Origin intended this extravagance for original Apple II owners. But this option would be obscure since some such cards for the original Apple II were created long before the IIe and IIc existed while ones created after where intended for (compatible with) the II plus or IIe. Such cards were in fact intended for adding Integer BASIC, Pascal, or other languages with the RAM and ROM upgrades merely being a requirement for these rather than being intended to be used by finished software. Compatible sound hardware includes: Mockingboard A Mockingboard C Mockingboard Sound I Mockingboard Sound II Mockingboard Sound/Speech I Phasor Passport MIDI The title screen includes and ACTIVATE MUSIC option and all hardware options can be configured there. The user must specify what hardware is present and which slots contain which hardware. The user is warned not to create a configuration with more than 12 voices. Phasor support is discussed further in the game's manual. A single Phasor can supply the same features as 2 Mockingboards plus additional voices for a total of 12 (But the game only uses 8). Passport MIDI provides different sound and music than Mockingboard(s). Mockingboards and Passport MIDI can be used simultaneously and the different sounds are complimentary; that is, 1 or even 2 Mockingboards + MIDI (8 voices + MIDI) are intended configurations by the developers. The player must manually configure the 14 instrument selections. While this could be considered a bit tedious by modern standards, it has the advantages being universally compatible with virtually any MIDI device and allowing the player to select instruments other than suggested by developers such as electric guitar and violin. Trivia: Officially, this was the last Ultima for which Richard Garriott contributed a major portion of code. He would act in design and management roles on all published original Ultima games after this one. He actually coded the [game=#41000]PC version of Akalabeth[/game] in assembly in 1998 (for the Ultima Collection package). But, this was not an original Ultima game as it was based on the [game=#38011]Apple 2 version of Akalabeth[/game]. This would also be the last Ultima game published for the Apple and designed for the Apple then ported or converted to other systems. All following Ultimas began as IBM-PC products and did not have Apple versions. However, Ultima V was not planned to be the last Apple II Ultima but was planned at one time to be the last 8-bit Apple II Ultima. See the descriptions of the [game=#40988]Apple II[/game] and [game=#166776]the Apple IIgs[/game] versions. [Zerothis] | labelimagesubject |
| Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress | Origin;Lord British (Origin) | 1989 | Requires 64k. Optional Mockingboard for music during Exodus portion. This collection and the Apple II platform is notable for having an enhanced version of Ultima II not available in other publishings. It is further notable because it was sold for less than 2 months before being discontinued; making the enhance version of Ultima II a very rare and exclusive Apple II product. Enhanced Ultima II is readily distinguishable by having a blue boarder around the picture. There are many improvments as well. Additionally, the version of Ultima III was enhanced, but this version was also available in other packages. Finally, Ultima I that was ported from BASIC source code to pure assembly code is available in this package (but this Ultima I was released on it own in 1985). This package is the only way to get the Apple version of the Ultima II remake. Origin briefly had a publishing arrangement with Sierra On-Line. It went badly. Ultimately it was Ultima II royalties (as in, not being paid at all for non-Apple version sales) that pushed Ultima's creator into exiting the agreement and founding Origin Systems. However, royalties were far from the only issue. Numerous disagreements over Ultima II's publishing where especially memorable to Lord British. Sierra fought efforts by Origin to republish Ultima games. In the case of Ultima II, they succeed in blocking Origin from using certain art that Sierra actually couldn't legally use themselves (but they didn't let that stop them from using the art anyway). Moving ahead; By 1989, management at Origin was no longer interested in investing effort or money into the Apple II platform because it would not make a worthwhile return. No one at Origin was forbidden from making Apple II games; some personal projects were completed for it. Ultima VI was started for Apple II, then changed to Apple IIGS, then abandoned in favor of the IBM-PC version. Many of the features that were possible on the IBM-PC could have been done on the Apple II (witness that the Commodore 64 received two ports of Ultima VI), but the dwindling Apple II market did not justify the effort. However, Lord British just had to do something about Ultima II for Apple II. It received a makeover much as the original Ultima for Apple II had. It was packed with the Ultima I remake and Ultima III with enhancements, presumably to make it more valuable with very minimal additional investment in the Apple II market. The Ultima Trilogy package would be offered in this form to other platforms as well. However, The FM Towns version of the trilogy contained 3 re-remakes. [Zerothis] | labelminimizesubject |
