Welcome foolish mortal! Such is the way Akalabeth: World of Doom greets the player after it boots up. Somewhat idiosyncratic, but at the same time memorable, the opening is, in many ways, emblematic of the Ultima series of games as a whole: Quirky, memorable and not a little brilliant.

Many gamers in their late twenties or older will have experienced the Ultima series of games in one form or another. The series is a seminal work of PC RPG gaming, often cited as innovating many of the now core RPG game mechanics of today. The series spanned 9 official main storyline games, along with a number of spinoff and side games and an extremely popular MMORPG. The series, in the main, was the direct brain child of Richard Garriott, a tabletop RPG and coding enthusiast who used new computer technology to translate his love of role playing games into computer games. A pioneer of the industry, Garriott is one of that rare breed,  the (initially at least) solo developer who started our coding for his own pleasure and ended up as one of the recognised founding fathers of his chosen gaming genre.

This choice of retrospective series is a personal one for me, as the Ultima games are a major part of why I love games. I grew up playing the various games in the series and in many ways it was a perfect progression. As I grew and developed, becoming more mature (shut up I did!) so did the games, becoming increasingly mature and complex.

 

 

So, what does today’s topic, Akalabeth: World of Doom, have to do with anything? Well, it just so happens that Akalabeth was Richard Garriott’s first real foray into computerised RPG coding. While not technically a member of the Ultima lineage of games, it is often referred to as Ultima 0, as it was the seed from which the Ultima series grew. Not especially sophisticated or complex, Akalabeth demonstrates many aspects that would become staples for many of the Ultima games.

The game is essentially a series of dungeon crawls that the player character is sent on by Lord British (a character based on Richard Garriott, essentially his representation in the games). In each dungeon the player is tasked with killing a specific monster that threatens the kingdom, with the aim to prove your worthiness to become a knight. Again, nothing too complex by modern standards, but bear in mind this was 1979, just having visual representations of the events occurring was wholly new and innovative. Complex narratives were just not possible with the graphical and memory limitations available.

Possibly the most noteworthy feature of the game is the first-person perspective used for navigating the dungeons. While not the first game to do so, Akalabeth gained much attention for its use of this feature as it was rare for the time. While later Ultima games eschewed this approach for constant isometric perspective, Akalabeth set the tone for many of the early games in the series and, most notably, set the precedent for two of the series’ spin offs Ultima Underworld I & II.

 

 

The game also demonstrated a distinct wry sense of humour on Garriott’s part. As well as the previously mentioned greeting, this is in evidence on the boot prompt for the game. It asks if you are ready to start and if you answer ‘no’ it exclaims ‘Then Leave and Begone!’, which always makes me chuckle.

Then there’s the fact that if you set out on your adventures without buying any food you immediately die from starvation; Pretty brutal stuff. In fact, the game itself is very challenging, for a number of reasons. The character statistics are (in line with Garriott’s tabletop RPG roots) randomly generated at the game’s beginning and, more often than not, are pretty awful. However, seeing as this was the days of basic computer code, players were often able to edit the game code manually to adjust these stats. DIY cheat codes people, that’s where it’s at!

Further complicating matters was the aforementioned food issue. You had to have adequate supplies of food to complete the individual quests. Your food supplied depleted with every step, essentially acting as a distance limiting mechanic, but it added a level of planning and difficulty to the game, especially when you encountered imps. Imps were possibly the toughest enemy to overcome in the game? Why? Because they stole half your food with every attack, meaning any prolonged encounter with them would almost certainly mean you would run out of food pretty much immediately.

 

 

The game has many obvious literary and fantasy influences, especially evident in encounters with monsters from games like Dungeons and Dragons, such as the gelatinous cube and from Tolkien-lore such as the Balrog. It also demonstrates Garriott’s genuine love for the whole process, as the game ending features a telephone number to call to let him know that you completed his game. In today’s world of monolithic developers and big business, this seems pretty quaint, but this highlights that this really was a time where games were made by enthusiasts for no other reason that for the sheer love of doing so.

While by no means a brilliant or inspired game, Akalabeth: World of Doom is an important beginning point for any retrospective for the Ultima Series. It was the draft-sheet for the series, basically Richard Garriott practicing and refining the techniques he needed for the series proper. For this reason, if no other, Akalabeth: World of Doom deserves to be considered a part of the Ultima series and is why it is often known as Ultima 0.

Having covered the foundations of the concept, in the next instalment we start the Ultima series proper with Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness.

Welcome foolish mortals, to the Ultima Series Retrospective!

© 2013 – 2015, zero1gaming.com. All rights reserved. On republishing this article your must provide a link to this original post