Time Machine Dragon, hot on the heels of yesterday’s news concerning his LRUMP Viewer, pushed a corrected version of the viewer to his website. This time around, it loads the Ultima 8 map from the LRUMP project, using the Commodore 64 Ultima 4 tileset. The Java requirement is entirely gone now; the viewer is built on the playn framework with a Python server backend.

Time Machine, for his part, wrote up a summary of the current state of the viewer, and even coined a name for it:

Ultima x: Where x is Low-Res

After his apparent ascension, THE AVATAR finds him- (or her-) self in a mysterious plane surrounded by limitless hordes of deadly daemonic creatures, not seen since the original legendary Quest OF the AVATAR.

THE AVATAR is surprised to find that these “Balrons” are not invoking an onslaught of sleep spells and deadly magical attacks.

The horde is motionless… Creepily motionless.

Are they asleep?

Are they suffering magical paralysis?

Are they statues?

THE AVATAR courageously attempts to walk through them… and finds that this is possible.

Are they ghosts?

Is THE AVATAR a ghost? (S)he wonders aloud:
“Where am I?”
“Am I dead?”
“Afterlife?”
“I feel motion.”

Suddenly THE AVATAR is transported to the familiar world of PAGAN, this time with a much softer and ethereal landing… but time is stopped… mountains can be seen past and walked through… though the water moves, it is not SPONTANEOUSLY FATAL — it can be walked on now (Ascension indeed!)… and so can lava…

And not too far away, THE AVATAR sees THE AVATAR…???

Enter this slightly familiar world of mystery…
Walk around a bit… Imagine the possibilities…
Explore the mystery and horror that exists beyond the oceans near the Isle of Morgae…whatever
Then get bored, and click the ‘BACK’ button…

Introducing: “LRUltima” (or “LRUMPtima?”) inspired by the LRUMP.

Going forward, Time Machine aims to implement animated tiles to replace the balrons that he currently has in place as stand-in tiles while the server is loading map data. Ideally, his aim is to replicate — in low-resolution, naturally — the Serpent Isle “blue moongate” loading screen.

And from there…well, who knows?