Dino’s Ultima Page beat me to the scoop on these developments, but the news is big enough to be worth repeating. Ultima 6 was always my favourite Ultima title, and that particular remake is a project that I’ve been watching with anxious anticipation.

And as if that wasn’t good enough, there is yet more news from other projects as well; that’s what I call a good week, Dragons and Dragonesses.

Ultima 6 Project

Frilly Wumpus dropped me a line to let me know that Ultima 6 Project Milestone #4 has been released. This latest update to the Dungeon Siege-based remake of Ultima 6 features:

• New areas to explore ( Buccaneer’s Cave, Wrong, Empath Abbey and Minoc )
• New game intro which draws from the original classic game
• Enhancements to existing areas
• New plot details and other subtle refinements
• Numerous enhancements to the core gameplay such as:
  • A prototype of a customizable journal system so you can take notes on
    your journey
  • The “;” key now gives you extra information, such as reagent counts,
    projectile counts, etc.
  • New “Gameplay Settings” from the Options menu
  • Many more tunings and tweaks to the core Project Britannia systems

Exciting? Definitely. The latest milestone can be downloaded from the Ultima 6 Project Website, or from the project entry here at Aiera.

Forgotten World

Hawkwind wrote me to let me know that this ambitious, in-engine remake of Ultima 9 has released a sample of soundtrack music written and recorded by composer “Sounddreamer”.

“Time Travel”, the new music, can be listened to at the Forgotten Worlds website, or via the music player below:

[audio:timetravel.mp3]

A few more project updates come to us by way of Petrell at Dino’s:

Ultima IX: Infinity Eternal

Thepal has posted the first news update in about nine months to his project’s website to let us know that things are still alive and kicking (and just to keep us salivating, he’s thrown in a new screenshot).

The reason for the relative silence of the project, incidentally, stems from a couple of major developments in the real lives of the people working on it. Thepal himself got married (as a recent husband myself, Thepal, I offer my heartfelt congratulations!), and team member MartinLoki became a father (congratulations there, as well!).

It’s good to see that this promising-looking project is still being worked on!

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman is continuing his breakneck pace of work on his port of Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator — in his latest update, he puts development at over 95% completeness.

Latest improvements include:

• A “new look” for Ultima 5
• Leveling up & down now works.
• Magic points are reduced when casting a spell and are slowly restored over time. Fighters have no magic capabilities.
• Enemies can now cast spells too.
• Frigate sails are now working.
• The final quest of the Shrine of the Codex has been implemented.
• Pit traps are now working. If you step upon a hidden pit trap, you are dead — plain and simple — so be careful.

Apparently, Ranman has been told by his wife that the project will be done in February.

Nazghul

According to this schedule, Gordon McNutt plans to release version 1.0 of his Ultima-like game engine, Nazghul, on the fifth anniversary of its registration at Sourceforge — May 26th.

Also, in wandering through other project websites, I noticed the following updates:

Realms of Ultima

With Jason White joining the team, the RoU project has begun implementing an Ultima-style gameplay system for Neverwinter Nights 2. They are changing the character classes to the 8 core classes commonly seen in Ultima, and associating each class with a city and virtue. They have also begun work on custom critters for the game, and have even implemented a wine press.

Project Britannia

With the release of Ultima 6 Project Milestone #4, numerous updates have also been made to the britannia_art.dsres, britannia_logic.dsres, and pb_laz_comp_layer.dsres project core files. These can be downloaded either from the Project Britannia Wiki or through the project entry here at Aiera.

[tags]Dino’s Ultima Page, Forgotten World, Ultima IX: Infinity Eternal, Project Britannia[/tags]