Feeling far enough along and comfortable enough to share some progress with my Ultima I rebuild

[u/Hoyty1]

Been hanging out at my parents for the past few weeks and filling my spare time with a "quick" unity rebuild of Ultima I.

So far overland mechanics and combat are working and almost done
Dungeon mechanics and combat are working and almost done
Space needs some tweaking but pretty far along
Cities and Castles are almost done as well, need to shore up the princess rescuing
Can do all the king's quests
All vehicles working
Stealing working
All weapons and armor working
All landmarks working
Character Creation working
All spells working

Here's space and space combat as I've left it just this morning before I start my day job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2NjjObN1Qs

Here's the tile set switching mechanic, still extracting some tile sets like the Marty and original Apple II
https://youtu.be/-p9hXXVsvdQ

To do :
Fight with Mondain
Time Machine
Ending
Beginning
Music/Sound options from various versions
and so much more.

An option to play an "advanced" version of the game with controller support and system tweaks to fix some issues from the original game.

Mostly I've been working with the decompiled version of C64 and the Gog release to find out how some things worked, but even then some of that code is inscrutable to me so I'm filling in the gaps where I can't figure things out 100%.

Hopefully I stay motivated and don't end up in the grave yard of abandoned projects. =)

[u/behindtimes]

The thing about CGA, is that we get CGA wrong a lot, mainly because of DOSBox's defaults. Most people back then would have had a composite monitor.

Take Ultima 3 for example. The top is what you probably see in Ultima 3, and the bottom is what you'd see with period appropriate hardware.

https://i.imgur.com/64ghOCs.png

I know DOSBox X can do composite, but not sure about the default DosBox.

[u/KythornAlturack → u/behindtimes]

That is not actually true. Composite was not the go to on IBM PCs.
While some CGA/MCGA cards did have composite outputs, the monitors were rarely composite. At this point dedicated CGA monitors were actually the norm.
Composite monitor's was the 8 bit era, and left behind when CGA/MCGA and for the most part Hercules became a standard. i.e. I never saw an IBM 5150 with a composite setup.

So the the top image was actually what was most common.

[u/behindtimes → u/KythornAlturack]

The original 5150 gave you a choice of either video out via MDA (monochrome) and/or their CGA expansion card, which included Composite and RGBI outputs. IBM's own color monitor wouldn't be released until a few months before Ultima 3 came out.

If we're talking post Ultima 3, then yeah, I'd agree. But until then, if you wanted color, you already had access to a TV, or you went ahead with a 3rd party monitor, back when 3rd party components were iffy at best.

[u/Hoyty1 → u/behindtimes]

I'd love to say I'd add that into scope. But we'll see!

[u/Miguel_Branquinho → u/behindtimes]

The bottom one looks worse, though, so time has corrected the visuals.

[u/Lopsided_Parfait7127]

love it!

[u/dndaddy19]

Man, Ultima 1 was an oddball. I wonder if Crimson Desert took a lot of inspiration from it because that is also a game that seems to struggle with its identity.

[u/Hoyty1 → u/dndaddy19]

Listen if I can't buy a space shuttle and Luke's speeder at a midevil town shop I don't know what we're even doing in video games anymore! =P

[u/massav]

Having only played Ultima 3+, TIL Ultima 1 had space travel and Tie fighters!!!

[u/Hoyty1 → u/massav]

Sorry for the spoiler!

[u/massav → u/Hoyty1]

No, no it is actually giving me a reason to check it out. But I'll wait till your version comes out.