My wife’s cousin mentioned to me, at a family gathering several weeks ago, that a friend of his had been working on a board game based off of Ultima 7: The Black Gate. This afternoon, he dropped a link to a newly-launched website that serves to announce the existence of — and to show off — that game in its present state.

In this board game, much as in the original title, players assume the roles of classic Ultima personalities (presumably the Companions) and must work together to destroy the three generators, thwart the Fellowship, and ultimately destroy the Black Gate. There are also side quests to finish, dungeons to raid and clear, and a plethora of items to find and equip…including the Black Sword itself.

At present, according to Lucifuge Dragon, the game is not in anything approaching a completed state. Game cards exist as paper cutouts for now, and the board (as nice as it looks) is a poster print from Staples. On the flip side, many of the game tokens are carved and painted wooden pieces, and look wonderful. Lucifuge will continue to work on the game, however, so over time we will hopefully see it mature in its implementation.

He also remarks that he has no intention of distributing the game, especially not for profit. Although one wonders whether there might one day be a way to arrange for interested Ultima fans to either pay the printing and shipping costs for their own copy of the game, or else obtain the source images needed to go and get their own version of the game — and all its components — printed somewhere?

At any rate, I have set up a project entry for Lucifuge Dragon’s game, whereat a gallery of images of the game can be found. Hopefully there will be more to update it with at some point! You can also find some additional images of the game on Lucifuge’s Instagram profile.