In an effort to learn more about the Unity game engine, Fregas Baratis has been working on making an Ultima-like 2D game. He’s been posting about it on the Ultima Dragons Facebook group since about January of this year:

So in order to learn Unity game programming, I’ve finished all the free tutorials and I’m working on creating my own classic “Ultima” style game. Hence my request for the link to the enhanced graphics tiles for Ultima IV.

So far, the “avatar” can move around on the 9 squares I’ve made, which is the entire world so far. He can also walk off the edge into the “ethereal void” outside of that where I haven’t drawn any map yet. Baby steps.

Later that same day, though, he had some additional progress to report:

So got a bit further with my Ultima-like game. I started experimenting with Tiled, software that helps you make game maps. I was able to make a lot more world and it sounds like supposed more efficient memory-wise as opposed to making each tile in Unity itself. Still have to figure out how to make the water and castle flags animate….

Water tile animations were sorted out by early February:

So I got all the water to animate in Tiled for my Ultima 4-5ish style game. Next up is collision detection for the water.

The project code name was settled upon a bit later that same month:

Hello fellow dragons. I haven’t posted in a while, but I do have an update on my Unity, “Ultima-ish” style game. I am code-naming it “Omega” because…well, another greek letter.

So far I have a framework setup for:

* Building the maps, both overworld and town/dungeon.
* Blocking the player, with obstacles such as walls or water (but leaving room for ships in the future.)
* Entering and exiting towns and dungeons, with the ability for multiple entrances to the same location but which will start you in another part of the map (for instance, two caves that lead to two different parts of the same dungeon.)
* Animated water and other objects/terrain
* The camera now follows you around, instead of the player being able to move off the screen.
* The beginnings in my head, of a story/plot which I probably need to write down.

It doesn’t look like much I know, but its my first game so baby steps.

Most recently, Baratis has added a HUD to the game:

My “Ultima-like” game now has line of sight/shadows, a HUD for each party member’s portrait and health (placeholder picture is there for now) and the window of the player’s actions. Please judge me less harshly then SotA…its my first game and I’m just a hobbyist using this to learn Unity.

Naturally, there’s also a shiny new project entry for Omega here at the Codex.