Slashing Dragon’s Ananias has finally made its way onto the iOS App Store, whereat the Fellowship Edition of the game can be purchased for $4.99 USD (or whatever the rough regional equivalent of that amount is). Slash is, understandably, quite relieved about it:

It’s been about 2 years since I’ve been promising next version will be it, all because I wanted the first iOS version to be much more complete than the first ones that were available on Android, since that early availability brought a lot of bad ratings (in exchange for some useful feedback in some cases, I guess).

The game has been playable for a long time (I only had to do some tweaks for memory management when loading music files, but those were beneficial for the whole game overall in the long term).

The final thing I had on the list after 2.0 was the optional onscreen directional pad which was released with 2.1 and thus triggered the submission to the AppStore.

Additionally, a week or so ago, Slash posted a guide to playing Ananias as an Ultima game over on the Ultima Dragons Facebook page:

I present to you the “Ultima Framework for Ananias”, which just requires a bit of imagination, this will allow you to play Ananias as if it was an Ultima game :O !

This story takes place in year 168 BC. Evil forces are draining the power of the Codex, directly on the ethereal void, and causing Britannia to tear apart; Gargoyles and humans alike can only watch helplessly through the lenses as the codex is covered in darkness…

Avatar, you are the last hope of Britannia. Our scholars have detected a variation on energy on the Stygian Abyss; something that may allow you to travel into the Ethereal Void and prevent the codex from being destroyed.

You are standing at the entrance of the Stygian Abyss, then as you start descending you find a circle of stones. A voice thunders inside your head: “Find the rune stone and a portal to another world will appear!” You continue exploring, and find the rune stone.

Upon placing the rune in the circle of stones, a portal appears! you step in and find yourself in another alien world, as you continue exploring… will you be able to save the Codex?

This applies to character classes as well:

Following is a mapping of Ananias classes to Britannian jobs:

Mage -> Arcane Wizard
Bard -> Slayer
Fighter -> Barbarian
Druid -> Dumeril Sage
Tinker -> Alchemist
Paladin -> Paladin
Ranger -> Hunter
Shepherd -> Shepherd
Gargoyle Warrior -> Ailorus Monk

So, okay, it’s not a perfect alignment (Bard/Slayer, notably). Still, I’ve always categorized Ananias as an Ultima fan project, and it’s clear that Slash built the game with Ultima somewhat in mind.