"Any Ultima fan OWES it to himself to download this game and play it. Satire aside, it truly feels like you're playing another official chapter of the Ultima series - I mean the virtues are there (corrupted though they may be), all your old friends, the map, the dungeons, the keeps, Lord British, Annon etc. I'm going to stop typing because I can't do it justice - it is GREAT." - from the lemon64.com forums
"AWESOME - Once I started, I couldn't put it down. Really well done, really good work." - from the joltcountry.com forums
Ultima IV Part 2: "Dude, Where's My Avatar?"
A parody of the UltimaTM series of games
Developed with Adventure Creation Kit by Chris Hopkins.
June 17, 2009: Michael Ellis posted a fantastic screenshot longplay on rpgcodex.net with hilarious commentary. Spoiler alert, but if you want to see how the game plays out, check it out!
March 6, 2009: There were some bugs with torches and swamp boots that have been fixed.
March 2, 2009: The "audio skipping" problem in the intro (and various other cutscenes) has been fixed. If you are experiencing this problem, install the latest ACK patch to fix it.
February 12, 2009: Ultima IV Part 2 is released from beta - you can find all the files you need to play in the downloads section, below!
Windows: Just download UltimaIVpart2.zip, unzip it, and run "ultima.exe".
Macintosh: Install Adventure Creation Kit, then download the Ultima IV Part 2 game files. Copy the "U4PART2" folder from the game ZIP file into the "ACK\GAMES" folder for ACK.
To run the game: Run ACK, and then load and run the U4PART2 adventure!
Linux/other: Same as above, but you will need to set up DosBox separately.
Note that ACK and U4PART2 are both freeware and open source!
The Ultima series of fantasy role-playing games were developed by Origin Systems and Richard Garriott (AKA Lord British) during the 80s and early 90s. Some of the earlier games helped define the genre of fantasy RPG gaming. The earliest games (the first three in the series) were fairly typical "become strong enough to seek out and kill the villain" games, although genre-defining in the introduction of a very open-ended, free-form top-down game interface.
Ultima IV, however, was unique in that instead of this generic plot, the game's struggle is the player's internal struggle to exemplify a life of virtue and seek wisdom and enlightenment. The game introduced a set of eight virtues, which became core concepts in the rest of the series. Pretty advanced stuff for a game from 1985!
Future installments in the series continued exploring moral themes in this fantasy setting; eventually, the series spawned the Ultima Online massively-multiplayer game.
Ultima IV Part 2 is a parody of the Ultima series. It takes place in the gap of time between Ultima IV and Ultima V. It answers some of the unresolved questions from the series:
How were the dungeons sealed? Why did Lake Generosity dry up? How was Blackthorn able to take over? Why did the Shadowlords really come to Britannia? How was the Codex raised out of the Abyss?
But why stop there? The game also pokes fun at the entire Ultima series:
What really happened to Mondain, Minax, and Exodus? Why did the Stranger/Avatar stop going into space? Where did the Guardian really come from? Why did Lord British's castle have an entrance to Hythloth? Why is Humility really one of the eight virtues? Just how crazy of a set of virtues will Britannians follow? Who cares? (Okay, it doesn't answer that.)
This game was developed with the Adventure Creation Kit software,
a free game engine that is now nearly as old as the games as I'm lampooning (it was first released in '91.)
The new version of ACK is updated and optimized to run under DosBox with better support for sound, pictures, etc.
Need help remembering which Ultima was which, when, and what they were like? The Ultima: Aiera website has an excellent synopsis of the Ultima series.
Also, Ophidian Dragon has a great website describing his playthroughs of all the Ultima games on his "Blogging Ultima" blog.
Thanks first to Joshua Lawrence for his extensive playtesting, helpful feedback, and ready supply of ideas. Thanks also to Robb Sherwin for providing a forum site (Jolt Country) for discussion of the game and engine.
I'd also like to thank a few strangers for providing websites with information or inspiration:
Dino's Ultima website has links to all kinds of other sites about Ultima -- many of the sites below I discovered through his site. (Thanks also for putting in a plug for this game so quick!)
Hipolito's journal of his Ultima IV playthrough - funny stuff! (If you like that, he's got another one in progress for Fallout 2.)
Xenerkes's site has all of the Ultima VI headshots, plus Ultimatrix, a great Ultima map viewer and other utilities.
Hacki has a great website with Ultima Nitpicks, documenting various inconsistencies between the games. Naturally I tried to explain as many of these as I could in this game: for example, where did the Drylands come from? Well, play and see!
And finally, I also found quite a few other useful Ultima-related sites on The Ring of Dragons.
How were the dungeons sealed?
