The secret story behind the development of the classic computer RPG 'Ultima' that had a big influence on Dragon Quest

' Ultima ', released for the Apple II in 1981, is a computer RPG created by Richard Garriott , and can be said to be the originator of the 2D field-style RPG, which had a strong influence on 'Dragon Quest'. This is the game that became the origin of `` Ultima Online, '' the progenitor of RPGs. Jimmy Ma, a retro game archivist, has summarized the development of 'Ultima' on his blog.

» Ultima, Part 1 The Digital Antiquarian
https://www.filfre.net/2012/02/ultima-part-1/

You can understand more about Mr. Garriott's development of 'Ultima' by reading the article below.

The development secrets and source code of the first game created by the creator of Ultima will be released - GIGAZINE

Below is the package of Apple II version 'Ultima' released by California Pacific Computer Company in 1981. The contents include two discs, a 10-page manual, and a reference card with important commands to enter during the game.

The play screen of Apple II version 'Ultima' can be seen in the following movie.

Apple II Game: Ultima (1981 California Pacific Computer) - YouTube


It seems that 'Ultima' was called 'Ultimatum' instead of 'Ultima' until just before its release, which means that if you look into the directory on the disc, the file name including the title screen will be ' This can be seen from the fact that it is 'PIC.ULTIMATUM'. According to Ma, the name ``Ultimatum'' was chosen simply to make it sound good, but since there was already a board game with the same name at the time of release, they wanted to avoid legal trouble by calling it ``Ultimatum''. ” has been changed to.

``Ultima'' follows the world view of Garriott's previous work `` Akarabes '' released in 1977, and is set in a world called ``Sosaria.'' This Sosaria is a popular table talk RPG in the United States and is said to be modeled on `` Dungeons & Dragons '', which is said to be ``the world's first RPG.'' As a result, some of the maps used in 'Ultima' are borrowed directly from the 'Dungeons & Dragons' campaign.

The resolution of the Apple II version of 'Ultima' is 280 x 160 pixels. It was technically difficult to draw all the graphics pixel by pixel, and it was impossible to fit that much data onto two disks. Therefore, 'Ultima' was drawn by combining tiles composed of 14 x 16 pixels. In other words, Ultima's screen consists of 20 rows x 10 columns = 200 tiles.

The person who came up with this tile graphics system was Mr. Garriott's friend Ken W. Arnold, who was also involved in the design and implementation of ``Ultima''. In addition to the tile graphics system, Arnold has also developed assembly language routines to quickly draw tiles as the player moves. This tile drawing routine and the routine that generates sound effects during battle are the only ones in 'Ultima' that are not coded in BASIC.

According to the official guide for 'Ultima' released later, Mr. Garriott and Mr. Arnold drew the figures on graph paper and then converted the graphs to binary numbers. After converting all the shapes to hexadecimal numbers, he entered the tiles as data and saved them to disk. Of course, there was no tool like an editor, so everything was done by hand, and Garriott commented, ``It was a very painstaking work.''

Towns and castles look like this, and like the field, they are drawn looking down on the 2D field from directly above.

Dungeon exploration takes place from a first-person perspective. This follows the 'Akarabes' system.

In addition, the first to third works of 'Ultima' can be purchased at GOG.com for $ 5.99 (about 880 yen) at the time of article creation. However, according to Marr, ``the version you can buy on GOG.com is more sophisticated than the original version released in 1981,'' and the original ``Ultima'' disc released in 1981. The image is published along with the accompanying documentation.

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