Development has begun!

I really loved the Ultima series when I was a kid.  In my opinion the series peaked with Ultima 7.  Even though the series started going downhill after 7, I still played Ultima 8 like crazy.  The game had a lot of potential, but it was rushed and didn't even feel like an Ultima game at all; it isn't remembered fondly.

I was recently inspired to make a retelling of the Ultima 8 story using the Godot 4 game engine.  My main goal is to make it feel like an Ultima game, something that Ultima 8 should have been.  Even though development has only just started, I have started working on the game's core systems.

First, jumping on platforms.  Yeah, we're not doing that.  We all hated that, and it won't be a part of this game.  Second, bringing back the virtues is going to be a big part of this.  The Avatar will need to live by example in this game just like in the past.  Stealing, lying, murdering, being prideful, etc... will all have negative effects and will change the outcome of quests and the game overall.  I'm also going to make the magic system a bit more like the old ways as well.  I'm still not sure how I'm going to handle elemental magic with the Titans.  And finally combat will take heavy inspiration from Dark Souls and Zelda.  We all remember the horrible mouse clicking of U8, and we won't be doing that either.

Another thing that will be different is that there won't be any pentagrams seen at all.  I understand that U8 came out at the tail end of the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s and the original developers were trying to be edgy, but that type of symbolic imagery is completely unnecessary.

I'm normally pretty bad about communication with blogs and social media, so I'll try to keep the community (if one develops) better informed throughout this development journey.