Lucifuge Dragon has some good news for us, and some very bad news as well. And I think you can all guess what the bad news is:

When I first started on the Black Gate the primary motivation was nothing more than the fact that I felt a board game based off of Ultima 7 would be fun and challenging to make. I can honestly say I have had way too much fun building and playing this game. Since day one it has remained on my mind consistently as I thought of new ways to improve and polish the game play, or thinking of new elements to add into the system. The very first time we sat down to give it a shot, it was clunky to saw the least. It was like pushing a wagon with square wheels. As time progressed, the sharp corners on the wheels began to smooth out and become round. While it is not perfect, I gush with pride when I receive positive feedback on it.

…

Part of the games charm is the wood coins and tokens, these aren’t something most people can make as not everyone has access to the technology and they aren’t really replaceable with much else. I did a rough cost of having a copy of the game reprinted with proper game cards, a set of laser cut tokens and game miniatures. The price is near $200. This is not something the average person would be willing to spend on something like this, and a free home printed version of the game is not an accurate representation of what I want it played as.

The Unity project was destined to be the remedy to these problems. About 10 years ago I attended art college for game and design. Upon graduation I got involved with the film industry where I still remain today so I have not had much opportunity to practice some of my skills specifically in game arts. I recently made significant headway into the realm of scripting, and I am still plugging away. It’s been an entirely new adventure with the game, something I am enjoying greatly. It’s been a nice change of pace exploring Unity and it has really opened my eyes to other possibilities.

Have you guessed what’s coming next yet?

If you haven’t gathered from my negative tone already, I am plunging the ceremonial dagger into the heart of The Black Gate, both its board game and Unity versions. It’s a bummer, I know, and I have a feeling a few of you will be choked with me after loyally following the progress of it for the last 7 or 8 months so I’ll apologize for getting any hopes up. All I can say is thank you for showing interest, it’s the only reason that I took it this far. 🙂

Well…that sucks, doesn’t it? I’ve reached out to Lucifuge Dragon concerning the game assets that he has created to date, in the hopes that at least some of these might be saved (even if the complete game in its present form is never, ultimately, released online in any form). At the very least, the project’s gorgeous map of Britannia (pictured above) deserves to be archived for posterity.

Not all is doom and gloom, however:

I really have faith in my game system. I enjoy playing it, I enjoy watching people play it. It has potential, and with a lot more work I think I can take it further than I could if it remained a fan project. I have spent the last 5 weeks starting the process of building an original IP for the game. I have recruited the help of talented people, one of which is a fantastic writer with a razor sharp, creative mind. I have brought him aboard to recreate all the games content from scratch and it is sounding quite splendid so far. The games mechanics will remain somewhat similar at it’s very core, but the story and content we are building is a fun, creative little world that I am liking more and more each day. It is being written for the system as opposed to building the system for the story.

This will allow me to look into crowd-funding in the future to help it off the ground and get the game to it’s full potential.

So rest assured, I suppose: we haven’t heard the last from Sixth Circle and Lucifuge Dragon. Whatever game he ends up creating next, and whatever story it tells, will have a bit of Ultima at its core.