The Nuvie team have been hard at work on their cross-platform engine for Ultima 6, Savage Empire, and (most relevant to this news) Martian Dreams. It has been a little over a month since we last checked in with the project, and in that time they’ve accomplished quite a bit:

2014-08-26 Eric Fry r1962
* Added search logic to MD when looking at containers.
* Added player_is_in_solo_mode() script function.
* More coverity bug fixes.

2014-08-28 Eric Fry r1963
* Started to document the Lua script API with LDoc.
* More work on use tent.
* Documented more lua script functions.
* Added generated ldoc html page for script API documentation.

2014-08-29 Eric Fry r1965
* Documented some more lua script functions.

2014-08-31 Eric Fry r1966
* Finished documenting lua functions in Script.cpp

2014-09-01 Eric Fry r1967
* Documenting ScriptActor.cpp lua functions

2014-09-02 Eric Fry r1968
* Finished documenting ScriptActor lua functions.

Okay, okay…most of the above is script and code documentation. However, note that in the first update, some work was done on container logic and the implementation of the game’s “solo mode” control scheme.

And yes, there’s more! Here, we get to the good stuff.

2014-09-10 Eric Fry r1969
* Added script functions party_hide_all() party_show_all()
* Added script functions objlist_write1() objlist_read1()
* More work on MD use tent logic
* Moved U6Actor::set_poisoned() into Actor class.
* Update ambience and view manager in script_wait() function.

2014-09-11 Eric Fry r1970
* Added actor leveling up logic to MD rest code.

2014-09-16 Eric Fry r1971
* Added MD ready/unready lua usecode script.
* Added the ability to call ready/unready lua script.
* Added poison hp update to the MD rest logic.

2014-09-20 Eric Fry r1972
* Updated lua from 5.1 to 5.2.3
* Added MD Radiation check.

2014-09-22 Eric Fry r1973
* Added MD berry counters.
* Added MD blue berry logic.
* Added MD eat berry usecode logic.
* Fixed bug with inventory view not updating properly in original mode.
* Added MD berry logic to tent usecode.

2014-09-25 Eric Fry r1974
* Added MD cold and hypoxia flags to script Actor object.
* Added more logic to MD advance_time() script function.
* Added generic Actor getter/setters for status_flags/ obj_flags.
* Load/save MD dream_mode flag in script.
* Cap max MD berry loading at 10 as per the original game.

Here we see some more significant bits of support for Martian Dreams being worked on, including the cold and hypoxia effects, support and systems for the blue berries, object readying and unreadying, support for poisoning, and even the leveling system.

An impressive body of work, in other words. Though, we’ve certainly come to expect that from Eric and the rest of Nuvie’s contributors.