Back to Roots: Ultima 5 Game Images

A while back, Fearyourself sent me an email explaining that — as a cursory visit to the website of his project, Back to Roots can confirm — he has been offline for a bit. However, whilst on a flight not too long ago, he cracked open his laptop and took a stab at decoding the .16 files that make up part of the game’s data. Before he landed (evidently), he managed to decode the files and extract the images hidden therein to a series of bitmap files.

And then, for good measure and completeness (and, presumably, the sheer unadulterated fun of it), he decided to decode the .4 files as well.

The difference between these two files should be obvious, but just in case it isn’t clear, the .16 files contain 16-bit colour graphics, while the .4 files contain 4-bit colour graphics (and are thus essentially monochrome. Here’s a series of comparison images:

I think the differences should be obvious.

Anyhow, I’ve added the ZIP files that Fearyourself provided me — archives of both graphics sets — to the Back to Roots project entry. Do feel free to grab them and check them out!