Inspired by Ultima(?): DARGHUL
I’ve been aware of Wolf Mittag’s DARGHUL for a few years now, but have never reported on it. The original DARGHUL was released several years ago, for DOS. Billing itself as a “classic German fantasy RPG”, it set the player into a massive world that, over the course of its story, would need to be saved from King Giburs Orkhorden. His orc armies scour and pillage the world; several powerful magical weapons need to be crafted to best them, best him, and bring the terror to an end.
Set in a massive, open fantasy world filled with castles, dungeons, and many NPCs (including Elves and Dwarves), DARGHUL features many world interactivity and crafting systems, scores of enemy types, and plenty of opportunities for exploration. The game bears more than a superficial resemblance to Ultima 7 in its graphics, and strives for a similar level of immersiveness. The author makes no claims of being inspired by the Ultima series, but the similarities are too many to be the products of mere coincidence.
I’ve added a project entry for it, which offers a link to where the old version of the game can be downloaded from its developer. The full version thereof will cost you 6 Euros, but I’d advise holding out for the new Windows-based version of the game that should be releasing later this year.
(Thanks to reader Nick for the reminder about this one!)
Interesting graphics. There’s something off with them technically. It looks like 320×200/240 256-color graphics have been upscaled proportionally to 1024×768 and converted to a different 256-color palette with dithering, resulting in some color artifacting. The predominant one seems to be a pervasive peach color, especially noticeable in the parchment OSD’s and stone textures. You’d think the target color depth would have been 16- or 24-bit, alleviating the strange colors.
Anyway, I’ve love to play this game. It looks like Ultima VI but exudes a darker vibe. Anyone play the original DOS version?
His other game, Teudogar (http://www.teudogar.com/), is even closer in look and controls to Ultima VII. Even the conversations are almost exactly like the ones from Serpent Isle.
Indeed!
I’ll be adding Teudogar to the site…probably tonight, in fact.
Oh, it’s the guy with the haunted forum on RPGCodex.