Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness

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Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness
Box art from the 1986 edition.
Developer(s)	Richard Garriott, Origin Systems
Publisher(s)	Apple II California Pacific Computer Co. Origin Systems Atari 8-bit Sierra On-line Commodore 64 Origin Systems DOS Origin Systems Electronic Arts MSX Pony Canyon FM Towns Fujitsu Apple IIGS Vitesse Inc.
Designer(s)	Richard Garriott, Ken W. Arnold
Platform(s)	Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, MSX, NEC PC-9801
Release date	Apple II USA 1980 USA 1986 (remake) Atari 8-bit USA 1982 Commodore 64 USA 1986 (remake) DOS USA 1987 (remake) USA 1998 (Collection) MSX JPN 1989 (remake) FM Towns JPN 1990 (Ultima Trilogy) Apple IIGS USA 1994 (remake)
Genre(s)	Computer role-playing game
Mode(s)	Single Player
Media	Floppy disk
Input methods	Keyboard

Ultima, later known as Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness or simply Ultima I, is the first game in the Ultima series of computer role-playing games. It was first published in the United States by California Pacific Computer Co., on September 2, 1980.^[1] Since its 1980 release, the game has been completely re-coded and ported to many different platforms. The 1986 re-code of Ultima is the most commonly known and available version of the game.

Ultima revolves around a quest to find and destroy the Gem of Immortality, which is being used by the evil wizard Mondain to enslave the lands of Sosaria. With the gem in his possession, he cannot be killed, and his minions roam and terrorize the countryside. The player takes on the role of 'The Stranger', an individual summoned from another world to end the rule of Mondain.^[2] The game follows the endeavors of the stranger in this task, which involves progressing through many aspects of game play, including dungeon crawling and space travel.

The game was one of the first definitive commercial computer RPGs, and is considered an important and influential turning point for the development of the genre throughout years to come.^[3]

Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Plot 2.1 Setting 2.2 Characters 2.3 Story 3 Development 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The world of Ultima is presented in a variety of different ways. The overworld is projected in a topdown, third person view, while dungeons are displayed in an isometric, first person design. In both scenarios the player character is controlled with the keyboard directional arrows, and shortcut keys are used for other commands, such as A for attack and B for board.

Character creation at the start of Ultima is not unlike a simplified version of traditional pen and paper roleplaying games. The player is presented with a number of points to distribute between various statistics that will affect his competence in certain aspects of gameplay. For example, adding numerous points to the strength statistic will increase the potential amount of damage inflicted on a foe. Once this portion of creation has been completed satisfactorily, the player is given a choice of four races: Human, Elf, Dwarf and Bobbit (a hobbit-like creature).^[4][5] Depending on the race picked, points will be added to various statistics. Elves are often seen as being lithe and agile, so points are added to the agility statistic. Once a race is chosen, the player is given a list of four classes to choose from, which also distribute more points to appropriate statistics. These classes are fighter, cleric, wizard and thief. The player is also asked to choose a gender for their player character, though this is purely cosmetic.

Four other statistics are important and imperative to successful game completion. These are hit points, food, experience points and coin. Hit points determine the health of the character; the more HP the character has, the further away they are from death. They can be obtained in a variety of ways, including the act of giving payment to the eight lords of Sosaria. Food is consumed every tile that the character moves, and if the food supply drops to zero, the player will starve. Food can be bought in towns to prevent this situation occurring. Experience points determine when the character levels up; one thousand points are needed to progress to the next level. Coin, or money, is used to buy things in the game world, such as weapons, spells and food, and can be obtained by defeating monsters or rescuing princesses from castles.

The magic and combat systems in Ultima are simplistic. Spells are bought from shops and used as consumable items, each spell purchase having one use only. Combat consists of each party attacking the other until one has fled or been defeated. Buying more proficient weapons and armor improves the chances of succeeding in battle.

The game also sports an arcade-like first-person space shooter section of gameplay, an element that only appeared in Ultima and not the subsequent games in the series. The player participates in a real-time space combat environment, confronted with enemy spaceships that they must shoot down in order to progress further along the story.

[edit] Plot

[edit] Setting

Ultima is set in the fictional world of Sosaria, a land broken into four different continents. The land is ruled by a total of eight different lords; two for each of the world's four land masses. Each continent contains two castle each, where quests can be obtained by the player, and a variety of towns where different goods and services can be purchased. The world map also houses many dungeons to be explored, and is populated by forests, mountain ranges, lakes and oceans. Due to the nature of the game's story, Sosaria is inhabited by numerous monsters and beasts that attack the player character on sight. There are also ruins and places of interest on each continent that the player can enter in order to receive rewards, usually in the form of a weapon or stat boost.

[edit] Characters

The two main characters featured in Ultima I are Mondain, the evil wizard antagonist who has induced a reign of terror over the world of Sosaria, and the protagonist, a character of the player's choosing. Character creation is open-ended and the protagonist could be anyone from an elf wizard to a human warrior. Because Ultima I was defining the genre of computer role-playing games at the time of its creation,^[3] any other characters are few and far between and character depth is little.^[6] However, the game features the first introduction of characters such as Iolo, Shamino and Lord British, who become staples of nearly all future Ultima games.

[edit] Story

The story of Ultima I revolves around the evil wizard Mondain and his rule over the kingdom of Sosaria. According to the game's back story, Mondain created an evil gem over 1000 years ago that granted him immortality.^[7] Since then, Mondain has released monsters and beasts upon the land that ravage the villages and towns of Sosaria and cause most of the nobles to bicker amongst themselves.^[4] In an effort to stop Mondain's dominion, Lord British searches for a person to bring about the wizard's end.^[4] This call is answered by the player.

The player is informed that the only way to defeat Mondain is to travel back in time and kill him before the gem of immortality is created.^[8] The majority of the game is spent searching for a time machine, and a way to activate it. Four of the lords in the game, one from each realm, hold a gem that will allow the time machine to work once all four gems have been found. In exchange for the gems, the lord will ask the player to complete a quest that involves travelling into a dungeon and killing a specific creature. Once this has been achieved, the lord will hand over his gem.

The time machine itself also needs to be found. Purchasing a space shuttle and travelling into outer space is a prerequisite of this - the PC must become a space ace, by destroying 20 enemy ships, in order to complete the game. ^[9] Once this task has been completed, rescuing a princess will reveal the location of the time machine, which always appears to the north of the castle in which the princess was held prisoner. The main character will then travel back in time and face Mondain before he has completed the gem of immortality. Destroying the gem is a requirement of beating the game as well as killing the wizard himself. Once Mondain is dead, the player is transported one thousand years into the future and rewarded by Lord British.^[10][11]

[edit] Development

Richard Garriott started development on Ultima after the unexpected success of his previous game, Akalabeth.^[12] Akalabeth was used as a subroutine within Ultima, to create the isometric dungeon sections of the game.^[13] Towns, quests, a plot and a user interface were all added to the original Akalabeth code before Ultima was completed.^[13] Development of the Ultima started when Garriott was attending the University of Texas, with the help of a friend, Ken W. Arnold.^[14] Ultima was coded in BASIC on an Apple II computer,^[14] and used a tile-based graphics system, the first game in the genre to do so.^[3]

Unlike Akalabeth however, the commercial sale of which was an afterthought to a hobbyist endeavour, Ultima was approached with a much more professional attitude right from the start of the project.^[15] The game was first planned to be called Ultimatum, but it was discovered that the name was already in use by a board game company, and so it was shortened to Ultima.^[14] The California Pacific Computer Company published Ultima in 1980 for the Apple II only, and it sold over 30,000 copies, making it more successful than its predecessor.^[14] In 1982, Sierra Online re-released Ultima for the Atari 8-bit computers,^[3] and in 1986 Origin Systems completely re-coded and re-released the game.

The 1986 remake was re-coded entirely in assembly language, which significantly improved the graphics and speed of the game. It was first released for the Apple II on December 23rd, 1986 ^[16] as Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness. Ports for the Commodore 64^[17] and DOS were also released.^[18] many subsequent releases were made in later years, including the 1989 version for the MSX, published only in Japan by Pony Canyon.^[19] as well as an Apple IIGS specific port in late 1994 by Vitesse. In 1997, Ultima was released by Electronic Arts as part of the Ultima Collection.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Ultima I at the Ultima Archive
• Ultima I at MobyGames

v • d • e Ultima series Main series I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX Worlds of Ultima The Savage Empire · Martian Dreams Ultima Underworld The Stygian Abyss · Labyrinth of Worlds Other games Akalabeth · Escape from Mt. Drash · Ultima Online · Ultima Worlds Online: Origin · Ultima X: Odyssey · Ultima V: Lazarus Developers Chuck Bueche · Dr. Cat · Richard Garriott · Herman Miller · Warren Spector · David R. Watson Characters Avatar · Companions of Avatar · Lord British · Batlin · Lord Blackthorn · Guardian · Minax · Mondain · Time Lord · Ventryn · General list · List of characters based on developers Locations Britannia · Britannia Manor Other topics Artificial scripts · Exult · Usecode · Virtues