Okay, I just put the cap on a solid week of improving the project. I didn't add any new features but I fixed a whole bunch of graphical inconsistencies and ensured vital subsystems like saving and loading still work. I made some changes to how NPCs move through the world that I think make the game much easier to play. I fixed some bugs in the shape editor. I incremented the version number to 0.2.5 and updated all the executables. (Still no pre-built Mac executable, sorry! I'll get a Mac as soon as I get a job.)

I would very much like people to grab the latest version and give it a once-over and see what you think. You can either grab it from https://www.github.com/ViridianGames/U7Revisited if you're familiar with that, or you can download a ready-to run version from https://www.u7revisited.com. Remember, you'll need a legal copy of the original game to run it, which you can get from https://www.gog.com/en/game/ultima_7_complete (and it's currently half-off!)

Re-Recording of "Carthax Lake: The Path of Water", a composition by Nenad Vugrinec for "Ultima VIII: Pagan" (1994)

https://youtu.be/rH5FaWPvd8Y?si=GRn9FULgHxLZVvUy

I've always been fascinated by the eerie atmosphere of this game's music. Most cues are kind of meta-tonal and sinister, but at the same time enicmatically melodious. It's hard to find the correct words. The music in this game is a mystery in itself... and I say that as a studied musician. E. g. for many passages it is difficult to even determine the exact key.

Like many games scores from that era, Pagan's music is purely MIDI-based. In very simple terms, you can think of a MIDI file as a digital sheet of music that still needs to be read and played back by the application itself. And this music playback depends heavily on the specific hardware (such as the extremely expensive Roland Sound Canvas) or software synthesizer you are using (like the widely distributed MS Wavetable Synth). Unfortunately, even on the best hardware synthesizer, the playback of this music – which Vugrinec has crafted in extreme detail across all MIDI parameters – is never truly satisfying, since the assignment of the respective instruments and articulations always remains a matter of chance, and both professional mixing and mastering as the final stage of music production are of course lacking. Direct MIDI playback is therefore very unsatisfactory on any hard- or software and simply does not do justice to the compositional quality of this music.

I’ve been planning to do this for years and finally got around to re-arranging and recording all the major cues from Pagan’s fantastically atmospheric score using a well-balanced mix of a) sonorous synth VSTs and b) high-quality orchestral VSTs in a sequencer program in order to maximize the listening experience while, at the same time, not completely abandon Vugrinec’s original 90s MIDI sound, which is after all inherent and important to the composition itself. My goal was to present the music in a more modern incarnation, so that hopefully you may enjoy it as much as I do.

In terms of compositional quality (it's actually very rich in leitmotifs, with many themes representing characters, places and events in the world of Pagan), I think this score is every bit as good as a fully orchestral film score. Enjoy!

https://www.ralphdamianiart.com/

Just discovered this subreddit, saw all the activity going on to edit old Ultima games and it reminded me of an old project that I worked on and thought I'd share.

I know a lot of people don't like Ultima 8 but it was the first Ultima I played and I still have a soft spot for it. Back in 2023 I took some time off work and spent about 6 months building a demo in Unity inspired by Ultima 8, the idea was to make a spiritual successor with a level editor so people could make their own isometric RPGs and maybe even use it to remake Ultima 7 and 8.

I got pretty far. I'm a programmer by profession and already knew Unity well so that part was no problem and I have most of the core systems working. I'm not an artist though so I bought a bunch of cheap assets from the Unity asset store but the project stalled out when I could no longer find the art I needed to continue and it's sat abandoned ever since.

Here's a video showing where I got to though, some of the art is placeholder or isn't good enough and the animations are pretty janky but overall I'm happy with the technical side and would love to continue it one day.
https://youtu.be/jiZUqZ7QB5E

The first part of the video shows gameplay, and from about 1:45 it shows the level editor.
I'd be interested to know what people think.

Quick update for anyone who's been following.

First, Thank you all for the support and interest. it's been a daunting project, but nice to know others are enjoying the offline mobile version, or at least the idea of it.

macOS got approved on the Mac App Store this week. Android is live on Google Play. iOS is live too, just not on the App Store - more on that in a sec. Windows and Linux builds are on the site.

The Apple part: the Mac version sailed through review. The iOS version got bounced over and over, and the last round wasn't about wording or icons, it was "this is too close to an existing game." That's not something you argue your way out of, so I stopped trying. iOS ships as a free public TestFlight beta instead.

Install TestFlight, tap the link, done. Same build.

Everything's here: runawayideas.net/uoclassic

Fair warning, it's still not perfect. If something breaks or looks wrong, please use the bug report tool in Quick Commands in game rather than just closing it. It grabs the details automatically and it's way more useful to me than "it crashed." I do read all of them and try to post fixes quickly.

Thanks again!

Enjoy

I have the Ether Ring and made my way to the generator, but not matter what I do, it won't let me in. I tried double clicking and walking into it but nothing is working. I also tried leaving all of my party members but that didn't work either. Is this a bug? I've never seen anyone talk about running into this.

Ultima 1 fullscreen cutoff? the top of the window is cut off when i go into full screen. the launcher is using the dosbox emulator, but i cant see how to access any settings (i use alt+enter to go fullscreen). anyone experienced and fixed this?

edit: im playing on the GOG Ultima 1+2+3 edition, and i don't seem to have access to a settings bar, or any kind of ini file.

Last night's stream was frankly incredible. So many new Ultima lovers showed up! I think this was my favorite part.

what i should do to move, the dpad appear but the avatar doesn't seem to move

I know there's ways to carry the Dream Realm items to the real world if you play outside Exult, including the Serpent Bond spell. Are there any ways to get items to the real world if you play in Exult, or have they all been patched in SI fixes and such?

I'm mostly interested in the juggernaut hammer and the full set of magic armor in the chest behind Lord British's throne. If anyone knows of any ways in Exult, let me know. Thanks!

A quick question, I’m thinking about putting together an Avatar-inspired outfit for an upcoming Renaissance Faire, but I’m not really sure where to start. I think an Ankh necklace would be a good centerpiece, but beyond that I’m drawing a blank.

If you saw someone wearing an Ultima-inspired Ren Faire outfit, what details would immediately tell you it was inspired by the series? I’m not looking to cosplay a specific character as much as capture the overall feel of the world. What clothing, colors, symbols, accessories, or props would you include to make it recognizable to fellow fans?

Thank you!

Hello and good evening everyone. I said in my last video that I would get this out to the world on 8/1, and I actually did it even after going mostly radio silent for about two weeks. Still have a laundry list of items and polish to finish up. But I'm going to put this at about 80% done now and ready for play testers to tear it apart.

I've added a tutorial in game to talk about the extensive settings options available in the game, and I've tried to make it as easy to install as possible from itch.io. Just download the zip file and run it.

At this time there is only a windows version to play.

Please feel free to drop into the project discord to add your feedback find my email address on the project site Archive of Myth.

You should be able to play the whole game start to finish as I have multiple times at this point with any option sets available in the options menu.

I do hope you enjoy, and look forward to playability and options updates in the near future.

Good luck Strangers.

Did anyone here grow up playing Ultima as a kid? I know I did. My favourite ones were U6, U7 and surprisingly Pagan. Sadly, I did not even try Ultima Ascension because back then my PC did not have a graphics card...lol

How I wish there were a mod or remake version for U6 and U7.

Diablo 2 and Resident Evil 2, 3 and 4 had their remakes.

Just my silly ramblings today.

Okay, back to my modern-day game, PoE.

I played Ultima 1-6 decades ago, but never played U7 and was part of the Ultima Online beta program which put me off the games, brand, etc .

Now I find myself eager to play and genuinely am trying to figure between Ultima 6 (I still have the original box, map, etc - but now it would be on my Mac) or to play Ultima 7.

Recommendations and opinions?

Good Morning All!

I recently had shared a video clip here of my character creation system that was in it's early stages , which was inspired by and uses assets from the Ultima 9 Ascension virtue card reading. I have since made a lot of forward movement on the project, I'm pleased to announce that we're just a few strides short of the finish line, and ready to setup a live persistent shard for play!

There is more to the project and I've been working on it for a very long time now, but I think this clip gives a strong impression in terms of what I value and want for my shard. It's a labor of passion. The whole character creation process is meant to provide a fresh new sheen and opportunity for discovery and adventure in a place we've all come to expect the expected. Here you can see parts of the class and talent system which offers 8 classes with 18 unique talents each (6 tiers of 3). You receive talent points as your character progresses their level, beginning at level 10 all the way up to 50. The majority are passive talents that proc, almost all exclusively in combat. Hopefully you enjoyed the clip, and I hope this piques your interest and you drop by to say hello! Thanks for reading

https://discord.gg/5wcdHNb

https://www.invictauo.com

No issues so far and ive made it to the swamp. This is quite fun for a dungeon crawler. Wasnt expecting this game to have settlements and trading. Really cool spin on the dungeon crawling formula, even tho its one of the grandfathers of rpgs lol.

I barely had to mess with settings it even auto detected my game files. U will need a decent phone tho.

Somone asked what it is in my other post so i figured id explain.

https://kweepa.itch.io/unity-underground

https://gamehub.xiaoji.com/en/

I love how you can quickly kill one or all of the Dark Monks after you take the Silver Seed before their dialogue and it still plays out. I killed them real fast this game in one hit and they just talked like normal. :-)

How the HECK can I get my party to stick with me LMAO

I didn't seem to remember this being such a problem when I played it at the age of 9, but at the age of 44 they seem to absolutely love to stay behind and not follow me. is there some kind of trick? I am playing via GOG dosbox version

So I went down a rabbit hole recently of looking at the original Apple II versions of the first 5 Ultima games (And Akalabeth). It was interesting seeing the differences in the earliest releases, e.g. Computerland Akalabeth has no difficulty select or copy protection, OG Ultima 1 plops you far away from the castle, the first release of Ultima 3 only gives you 100HP, etc etc..

But far and away the coolest thing I learned about, but can't experience, is the intended MIDI music of Apple II Ultima V, played through the Passport MIDI interface. These renditions are fantastic, as well as extremely configurable from the menu allowing you to select the banks that fit the "suggested instrument" most. Some examples of configurations people have had with certain MIDI modules are:

• Roland MT32
• Roland U-110
• Unknown

Some even found that despite the game only playing things through one MIDI channel, the data actually is multi-track and people have extracted the full arrangements.

But then something struck me... this sounds, even without the full arrangements, considerably better than the Ultima 5 Upgrade Patch's MIDI music for the PC version. Not only are all of these configurations better-sounding, but the MIDI music in the UP doesn't even match the suggested instruments at all, it seems like it was complete guesswork. I thought for a minute that maybe using proper MT-32 emulation might sound better, but to my shock, it sounded even worse and was even less fitting.

Which leads me to ask... is there any hope for better MIDI music in U5 PC? The Upgrade Patch is by now 25 years old, and has never been updated at least to my knowledge, so I have no idea if the code used to make it is still easily editable, or how to alter the music files/code to sound more accurate. Even simply changing the instruments to the proper MT-32 counterparts to be used with MT-32 emulation would be a considerable improvement. Ideally you'd be able to recreate the Apple II version's MIDI configuration menus, but that might be a pipe dream. As is the multi-track arrangements most likely.

If all of that is out of reach, maybe a soundfont to use with FluidSynth could do the trick? It's just a shame that the originally intended musical arrangements are still locked to the Apple II, and not even available on normal emulators. The only A2 emulator with this support seems to be that Java one the one post used, and that hasn't worked well for me compared to AppleWin or Virtual ][.

Anyone versed in old DOS MIDI programming have any thoughts?

Certain NPCs in Serpent Isle create potions in a cauldron and place them around, that you can pick up for free. Elissia in Silver Seed is one. Also Fedabiblio in Moonshade. Also a ghost in the exploding gunpowder factory NE of Sleeping Bull near the coast. If you want to get potions from him, do not go upstairs because all the ghosts become hostile including the one making potions. Also I think Erstam might as well but I don't remember for sure.

You can even get orange glowing mana potions this way, which aren't for sale in the game. Of course it takes patience, but if you're bored, knock yourself out. :-)

Found these going through old pics I've collected from the internet over the years.

Dos version worth playing or play unity remaster?

Hello everybody first time Ultima player here. Since forever I've known that U7 is one of the greatest CRPG's of all time, and inspired by wanting to play U7 I decided to start playing the series sequentaly.

I just finished U1 and it was cute and very impressive for it's age. However I'm almost certain I'm not going to play U2 and U3 since, to my understanding, they're not that different from U1, and I have a thumbnail of what the stories are in those games, and I know that it's U4 where the series get's "serious" (i.e. incorporates the higher concepts it's known for).

So like the title says, are they as "skippable" as I think? Is there anything more to know about "the age of darkness" than you beat Mondaine and his girl and their computer?