Originallly released for the Apple II computer only, the game was later ported to PC, enhanced from black and white to 4-color CGA graphics, and included in the Ultima Collection compilation. Considering that many new games nowadays don't sell even close to this number, Garriott's success is remarkable. Then a publisher in California got hold of it and purchased the publishing rights."Īs it turns out, "the publisher" is called California Pacific, and it sells 30,000 units of Akalabeth. I created 16 of them, and sold 15 in the store. None of these have disks because they were expensive, and I'd only copy them when I needed them. The owner convinced me to self-publish the game, so I went out and produced 200 ziplock bags, coversheets and printed manuals. I created Akalabeth for me, in the summer after my senior year in high school when I was working at a ComputerLand store. The only thing we added was the bitmapped graphics for the outdoor areas. Literally, if I go into a dungeon, the exact same code is used in Ultima I. Richard Garriott fondly recalls the old days in an interview with CD Mag : "It really is Ultima 0. Simply put, it's a typical dungeon romp similar to the early Wizardry games, but a lot more simplistic. The underworld is a pseudo-3D view of a cave with little graphic monsters made out of white lines (and very ugly looking). The overworld is a place where you roam to find towns for supplies and a dungeon to defeat evil creatures. The plot is pretty simple, but does set the stage for Ultima games which would be based in the same fantasy world: you must go and defeat the Dark Lord Mondain to free the world from terror and chaos. If you like one of the old style (and I mean OLD style) RPGs, then this is your choice - all of the others: go and get a newer Ultima!Īkalabeth Remake is an excellent fan-made remake of Akalabeth, the game that marks a true beginning of Richard Garriott's famous career as one of the world's best known designers. It's really a game that's nothing for the weak-hearted, coz' there are no colors, or anything near to graphics. ![]() Well now as you can see, Aklabeth comes with full detailed 2-color graphics, along with some explaining text-passages on the lower side of the screen. They call it Ultima 0 (if you don't believe me and think I came up with it myself, go on and take a look at their Homepage). By now Origin likes to see Aklabeth as the first game in the Ultima-series. Richard Garriots first game, as far as I know. The dumb thing is that you have to care about the food supply all the time. The game itself is nothing special, but hey! Look at the year when it was made! You can select either a mage or a fighter and head to the dungeons in search for wealth and glory. The game is written in Pascal so the graphics and sound are pretty crappy. It was actually never made for PC so this is a version that came with the Ultima Collection released by Origin in 1997. ![]() ![]() Akalabeth, or so called Ultima 0, was the game that started the Ultima saga.
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