Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, first released in 1985[1] for the Apple II, is the fourth in the series of Ultima role-playing video games. It is the first in the "Age of Enlightenment" trilogy, shifting the series from the hack and slash, dungeon crawl gameplay of its "Age of Darkness" predecessors towards an ethically-nuanced, story-driven approach. In 1996 Computer Gaming World named Ultima IV as #2 on its Best Games of All Time list on the PC. Designer Richard Garriott considers this game to be among his favorites from the Ultima series.[2]

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Ultima IV box.jpg
Cover art
Developer(s) Origin Systems
Publisher(s) Origin Systems
Pony Canyon (Famicom)
FCI (NES)
Sega (SMS)
Designer(s) Richard Garriott
Composer(s) Ken Arnold (home computers)
Seiji Toda (NES)
Series Ultima Edit this on Wikidata
Engine Ultima IV Engine
Platform(s) Amiga, Apple II, Atari 800, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, MSX2, PC-88, PC-98, X68000, X1, FM-7, NES, Master System
Release September 16, 1985
1990 (NES, SMS)
Genre(s) Role-playing video game
Mode(s) Single-player
Plot Edit


Ultima IV on the Commodore 64.
Ultima IV is among the few computer role-playing games, and perhaps the first, in which the game's story does not center on asking a player to overcome a tangible ultimate evil.[3]

After the defeat of each of the members of the triad of evil in the previous three Ultima games, the world of Sosaria underwent some radical changes in geography:[3] Three quarters of the world disappeared, continents rose and sank, and new cities were built to replace the ones that were lost. Eventually the world, now unified in Lord British's rule, was renamed Britannia. Lord British felt the people lacked purpose after their great struggles against the triad were over, and he was concerned with their spiritual well-being in this unfamiliar new age of relative peace, so he proclaimed the Quest of the Avatar: He needed someone to step forth and become the shining example for others to follow.

Unknown Horizons is a genre-mix of city-building game and real-time strategy game, strongly inspired by the Anno series.[1] It is released under the GNU General Public License and is therefore free and open source software. Much of the artwork is open content under e.g. CC BY-SA Creative Commons licenses. The game is still under active development, milestone snapshots are released occasionally.

Unknown Horizons
Unknown-Horizons-logo.svg
Developer(s) The Unknown Horizons Team
Publisher(s) The Unknown Horizons Team
Engine FIFE
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD
Release 2008
Genre(s) City-building, real-time strategy
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer
History Edit

Unknown Horizons originated in the OpenAnno project from 2005 which aimed for being a clone of Anno 1602.[2] The project uses FIFE as game engine and features isometric 2D graphics. Since FIFE also is in development stage and Unknown Horizons is the first major project based on this engine, the developers of Unknown Horizons have agreed to help with development on FIFE. Python was chosen as the language for this project because it is the language best supported by FIFE, guarantees cross-platform compatibility, and allows rapid development. The models for Unknown Horizons are created using Blender and then rendered in four rotations (eight for units).

The first public alpha version was released on October 1, 2008. Development currently focuses on implementing more game-play content (buildings, resource production lines). Next major steps in development include usability improvements and an island editor.[3]

In 2009 the project was renamed from OpenAnno to Unknown Horizons.[2]

Unknown Horizons took part at the Google Summer of Code 2011 as a mentoring organization[4] and participated again in 2012.[5]

UnReal World is a roguelike survival freeware (shareware before 2013) video game set in Iron Age Finland.[1] It can also be bought on Steam. The first version of the game was released in 1992, but gets regular updates to this day. The latest update occurred in March 2017.[2]

UnReal World
Developer(s) Sami Maaranen, Erkka Lehmus
Publisher(s) Enormous Elk
Designer(s) Sami Maaranen, Erkka Lehmus
Platform(s) Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Release 1992
Genre(s) Roguelike, survival
Mode(s) Single-player
Gameplay Edit

The game world features aspects from Finnish mythology and folklore. The player adopts one of ten Finnish cultures with occupations including fisherman, hermit, trapper or tradesman.[1]

The game has both real time and turn-based elements. The main aspect of the game is on survival. Unexpected events like a snowstorm can lead to a quick death of the player character.[3] UnReal World focus is simulating a harsh environment, where survival is the main challenge for most players. The game simulates a lot of details like frostbite of individual body parts.[4] The world includes different animals, cultures, vegetation and climate. The player can roam freely in the world and manipulate a wide range of aspects like hunting and skinning animals, constructing shelters, etc.

Development Edit

The graphics are simple 2D sprites. The sprites have some animation, and the direction of the individual units is expressed with a small arrow. The game uses a fixed resolution of 800x600 pixels.

Version 1.00 of URW was completed in 1992, and resembled a more traditional roguelike game (like ADOM). The ASCII gameworld was medieval fantasy, with elves, orcs, mages, magic potions, dungeons, etc. Development of the game continued through 1995, along the way seeing a complete rewrite in C. Even in these first few releases, features were established that would become the essence of the modern game. These included varied combat options and aimed attacks, a split UI layout, open-ended game play, random generation of wilderness, villages, and dungeons and their features, wilderness skills (fishing, tracking, foraging, etc.), and the introduction of "early cultures" which replaced the high-fantasy style races and classes.

NIce