Origin historian Pix was approached about playing through the board game adaptation of Ultima 1 created by Joseph Propati (its project entry is here, whereat a full download of the game assets can be found).

It’s fair to say that I’ve played more than my fair share of Ultima 1 ports in this last year or two and I thought I’d just about run out of them when I was asked if I’d be interested in playing a boardgame adaptation. I can’t say I’ve ever played an RPG boardgame before but it’s certainly something different for this blog so I couldn’t really say no. My printer wasn’t up to the job but several weeks later we’ve managed to get the constituent parts across the pond and with a few additions of my own I’m in business and ready to give this thing a go.

The game evidently takes a bit of time to set up, and of course comprises many pieces and boards. Navigating through the game’s world is fairly straightforward, however:

I start next to Lord British’s castle and my first thought is to head for Britain to grab myself a bow. I’m free to move in all directions around the map as per the regular game, except I’m also able to move diagonally here which is something of a novelty for Ultima 1. On foot I eat 1 food for every 2 squares moved + a monster will spawn every 10 steps all of which I have to keep track of myself.

His first impression of the combat in the board game version of Ultima 1 was that it was…rather more difficult than in any of the computer-based versions thereof:

Combat here isn’t quite what I expected with stats not playing any part except for the level of my character. Basically I take the level of my character and look up the number in the sheet on the right above (20 in this case). I then take off the armour class of the monster (5) and any to hit modifiers I might have (these are an optional bonus for each level gained). I started with a +1 hit modifier so I have to roll 14 on a 20 side die to score a hit. The ranger on the other hand only has to roll a 9 so I’m at a serious disadvantage here. My dagger does a roll of a 10 sided die for damage with this ranger doing 2D6 +6 which makes things worse.

You can probably imagine how this went.

His initial impression, after a first play session, was…lukewarm at best:

I reckon I can finish Ultima 1 in under an hour on the PC. I must have taken about 3 hours so far and I’m only 1/4 of the way to level 2 and I’ve not even got to the first dungeon. The main thing I’m taking away from this is the speed of the game which is incredibly slow when you have to do everything by hand. It’s undoubtedly going to speed up as soon as I can get the better equipment (and don’t have to refer to the rules constantly) but I can’t see that I’m ever going to choose this sort of boardgame over a computer game as a rule.

However, things began to turn around for him in his second play session. Acquiring the best weapon in the game tends to have that effect, though:

I head back to town with the intention of buying food and HP when I happen to notice the price list for weapons and the fact that I now have enough gold to get the best weapon in the game for a bargain 250GP. There doesn’t appear to be any level restriction and this has to be better than walking back and forth between signposts so I go for this and opt for starvation rations instead. The instructions mention two types of weapon shop actually and which towns have which type of shop but I couldn’t see anything telling me exactly what the difference was so I’m just assuming they all sell everything for my purposes here.

…

Up until this point I’ve been getting chased around the map by two sea monsters who both looked way out of my league. My new blaster allows me to pick both off from range with impunity then it’s back to the dungeon to bash my way through more level 1 monsters. I quickly work my way through all 15 of my level 1 cards several times with my new blaster taking out everything in a single hit when I score one. When I level up, my fighter character can roll one less on the D20 to score a hit in combat and I get to choose between a +1 damage or +1 to hit modifier. These modifiers are seriously unbalanced given my weapon already does 12 D10′s worth of damage and I fully intend to just go for the +1 to hit modifier at every level.

And his opinion of the board game improved some as a result:

At the end of all this, my character is up to level 4 and a whole lot better off than he was in part 1. At level 4 the wilderness monsters double in frequency which may slow things down but I would guess that I’m closing in on the halfway point. I think it’s high time to get some better armour and then have a go at the quests.

…

After two decent length sessions, I still can’t say I’m convinced about this sort of single player RPG boardgame in general. I mean I’ve done some geeky things in my time but spending hours rolling unlikely shaped dice while playing this is right up there. While I clearly prefer my own variety of retro-gaming geekdom, I am still having some fun playing this as a one-off at any rate and am looking forward to getting properly stuck into the dungeons in part 3.

And indeed, he made good progress in getting through the game in his third play session:

My fighter is now up to level 8 and closing in on being ready for Mondain. With no spacefaring in the boardgame for now, I look to be all set to finish this up in part 4.

The dungeons have proved to be my favourite part of the game so far. The level of challenge scales nicely throughout each level with levels 9-10 enough to make even the most experienced character wary, whilst also offering enough reward to make it worth the risk. It’s possibly a little too much reward, three of those balrons would be about enough to raise my character a level on their own. Then again I possibly shouldn’t have that blaster I’ve been using. I’m not so sure about the secret walls. With only a 1 in 6 chance of actually being able to see them it’s not worth the detour as a rule so I’ve just been ignoring them but at least the option is there. Above all the dungeons just work well as a board game without too much unnecessary stat keeping. I simply have to draw a monster card and fight that monster without any faffing unless I decide to run away.

I note that at the end of his comments on this third session, he neglected to mention not being sold on playing through Ultima 1 in board game form.