Scythifuge Dragon has posted an update to the long-dormant Facebook page for The Savage Empire Remake, his Exult-based effort to remake Savage Empire using Ultima 7’s engine:

It is a struggle on some days, especially under certain weather conditions (winter is horrible,) and life has been a bit dark, though I am getting back into drawing pixel art.

It is slow going as I get used to it again. I am self-taught, so it can take a while to draw something, though it should go faster as I continue to get back into it. My workstation has a better set up, using two large screen televisions for monitors. I am looking for my wacom tablet, and setting up my wireless receiver for my wireless keyboard and mouse so that I can work from my rocking chair when my back and leg become aggravated from sitting at my desk.

I won’t post anything new until I get used to it again. I just wanted to let everyone know that I have not abandoned my projects. In fact, getting busy with them will be good for me.

I love Exult, but it has limitations. My needs for help still exist. If anyone is a programmer and can help add needed features to Exult Studio, that would be awesome. I plan on researching Unity as an alternative, so if anyone wants to help with utilizing Unity, please send me a message. I’m not much of a programmer, but I am going to try to learn. If Unity is used, I would like to set it up so we have the option of the classic oblique perspective, or even better, isometric.

If we can set it up so that we can easily create dialogue trees, quests, and in-game cutscenes, I would be interested in making other remakes, and an original Ultima game (details are secret, but would be awesome!)

Anyhow, enough rambling. I will be working as I can, amd hopefully I will post something new soon. If anyone wants to help with programming, scripting, or drawing animation frames, please let me know. Without assistance, all I will be doing is drawing and creating mockups, at least for now.

I hope to have something new, soon!

It’s not the most positive news, granted; Scythifuge has had a number of personal struggles in recent months, in addition to facing the technical obstacles discussed here. It would at least seem he’s open to changing engines, if doing so makes it more likely that the project will be able to move forward.

Mostly, though, he’s looking for some help bringing his vision to life. If you’d care to help out, drop him a comment on Facebook, or shoot a message to the project’s page thereat.

And my apologies to Scythifuge, as well; this article was one of a couple that I never wound up posting in April (when they were still fresh). It’s now August, and I regret the delay.