Over at Hippo Bytes, Adam Brower has penned a wonderful bit of introspection and reminiscience about his first brush with the Ultima games and how the series shaped him as a person.

I spent some time growing up on a 520 acre ranch. It was a great place to grow up, the land had every sort of terrain an adventurer would want. There were fields, forests, hills, large rocks bigger than large rooms (with rumors of a cave with lost bank robbery treasure), ponds, creeks, and remnant of old houses from the early 1900’s. My sense of exploration was peaked. I explored every inch of that land, but often thought, “why can’t a video game allow me to explore a new world?” It was only months after when a friend of mine, who had an Apple II monochrom screen, introduced me to a game called Ultima. I was in 7th grade, and it was Ultima IV to be exact. The world of technology was rapidly evolving. I didn’t have any way of knowing about advancements in general, and especially in some hick town. I prided myself on trying all things, but was now thrusted into a new world of computer gaming.

Ultima IV will go down as my favorite game of all time. It was pivotal to my paradigm and my first role playing game (RPG). Ultima was an entire world that was given to you to explore, discover, complete quests, and ultimately solve the mysteries of the entire realm. Boundaries were no longer existence. I could go where I wanted, while battling creatures and collecting gold.

Do read the whole thing.

I’m sure many of you have similar stories you could tell. I think in a few cases some of you have told those stories, in either the comment forms here or at Old Aiera. I think I’ve even related my own experience, in bits and pieces, over the last few years.

Well…I invite you to show Adam that his is not a solitary experience. I invite you to share your own Ultima awakenings and experiences. But to better facilitate us all doing so, I’m going to disable comments on this post, and instead direct you all to post your stories in the Sword & Shield forum. I’ll even flip the switch that allows non-registered users to post to the forum, just in case anyone not currently registered for the Ultima Codex wants to share his or her story.