Brad Hannah has posted another milestone report for Ultima V Redux, detailing progress he has made on his 3D overhaul of Ultima 5 over the last six months:

The point and purpose of this update was to begin to really nail down some of the more specific behaviours in the game. The original Ultima V game engine had about 80% of the game run from generic run code, while the other 20% was extremely specific based on often very specific circumstances. These require custom AIs (not ChatGPT level stuff lol) and often custom code stuck in odd places.

Two new graphics perspectives were added – a new 3D perspective that is not isometric and a top down enhanced classic style. An optional change in perspective was EASILY my most requested feature. I sincerely hope this encourages more fans to consider the game in the future.

A small but very important update to combat map triggers was added. This ensured all combat maps were testable and able to be completed

Lastly there was an initial kick at dungeons. Loading them and navigating them in a crude fashion. There is much more to go – but this first step was long overdue!

The update is fairly technical and specific; Brad goes into detail about both of the new graphics modes — a reworked top-down “Enhanced Classic” view, and a “New 3D” view that offers a perspective on the game world not unlike that of the early Legend of Zelda games.

Also introduced in this update are something Brad is calling “Specific Behaviours”:

Specific Behaviours is a name I gave to any feature that strays from the “standard engine mechanics”. For example – if I want to talk to someone, the default behaviour is to lookup their dialogue script and follow it carefully. But there are a handful of NPCs that do not have dialogues built like that. Instead the original game code would have called a custom subroutine that followed specific and non standard logic. The Blackthorne guards are a great example of this.

Specific Behaviours are also anything that barely noticeable, but reflects a rule of the game world that you would maybe not consider at all. For another example – a minstrel is coded to look exactly like a bard. But if you sit them on a chair then they change to the minstrel sprite and begin to play music that the player can hear. These NPCs behave uniquely.

As always, you are encouraged to click on through to read the whole thing.