Someone Is Porting Akalabeth to the Commodore 64
Someone going by the handle Dr. Strange recently announced that he, with the help of a small team, was porting Akalabeth to the Commodore 64:
Happy to announce we are converting Akalabeth: World of Doom (aka Ultima 0) to the C64. We just started working on it, so updates will be posted here soon.
The team in question is evidently Atlantis64; you can find their Facebook page here. The port is being implemented using a mix of BASIC and MC in order to achieve higher-resolution graphics. Dr. Strange intends to produce a straightforward port; he admits to being something of a purist where Ultima is concerned.
A short video demonstrating an early build of the port has also been released:
As of May 5th, Dr. Strange has stated that the main part of the game has been almost entirely ported; the team are now testing it and fixing bugs as they emerge. You can follow this thread at the Lemon forums for updates.
I for one am looking forward to playing this version of Akalabeth once they complete it. Playing it on an 8-bit machine as it was intended just seems right. Hopefully it will at least match the performance of the original the Apple II version. It would be a shame if this version performs slower. I believe LB gave up the rights to Akalabeth to EA with the rest of the Ultimas correct?
I’m not sure about the Akalabeth rights…there was a mobile port that came out a few years ago which was not produced by (or contracted to another developer by) EA. They may hold the rights even so, but if so, they evidently aren’t keen on doing much to enforce them.
Akalabeth World of Doom for C64 is ready…
Is it? Excellent.
Yes…
https://youtu.be/frbTjGrCZR4
Is the forum thread where I can find a download link?
The download is not available now, but this is the link to the forum for download when is available:
http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60384&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=
It is only a matter of days.
Ah, ok, cool. Thanks for the update(s).
As soon as it is available I will keep you updates.