Stygian Abyss is the 7DRL 2015 challenge put together by Slashing Dragon and Exodus Destiny. A first-person, action-driven dungeon crawler, it presents players with a challenge that should be familiar to all Ultima fans: brave the depths and perils of the Stygian Abyss, and retrieve the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom from its depths.

Features

• A level generator inspired in Ultima Underworld
• Explore the environment in a first person view.
• 8 classes with different starting equipment and skills
• 11 spells
• 28 different monsters
• Melee and ranged weapons

The game can be played online at Slash’s website, or it can be downloaded at GitHub (or via the newly created Stygian Abyss project entry here). The download isn’t a native application for any OS; it is the web application proper, and must be run off of a web server.

Also available for download is the Stygian Generator, the level generator Slash used to create the maps for Stygian Abyss. It too is available via both GitHub and the Stygian Abyss project entry.

Slash, for his part, had a few acknowledgements to make:

The cover art was created by Talzhemir “Manda” Penumbra; drawn and painted specially for this game. She was part of the Ultima VI dev team. Thank you!

The music is Ultima IV “Dungeon“, from Ken Arnold. C64 version from the Videogame Music Preservation Foundation

The sound effects were made by Bart, from OpenGameArt.

Graphics come directly from the Ultima IV and Ultima V tilesets, with some tweaks and original tiles being made.

It’s pretty impressive, I think, that Slashing Dragon and Exodus Destiny were able to put this game together in a mere seven days (that being the time limit for 7DRL, the Seven Day Roguelike Challenge). And it’s always a welcome thing to see a team put together something that homages Ultima in the best ways.