Ultima: The Reconstruction

The online community dedicated to preserving Ultima through development efforts.


Game Engines & Frameworks

A game engine is a piece of software that serves as an interface between game code and the hardware. It makes the universe of a game presentable to the gamer. They also provide a means for others to build an Ultima-styled game with either no or limited coding.


67    BritanniaMOD

Welcome to Lord British's Castle! Welcome to Lord British's Castle!

Produced By: Odorous Rex
Status: Inactive

Downloads:
  ·   Version 1.1 (5.9 MB)

While not exactly an "engine", this Morrowind Mod provides a Britannia that others can use to build full games. Britannia, its cities, and its dungeons are based on Ultimas 4-7. It also features the very large and complex underground dungeons and caverns found in U7.

BritanniaMOD is a total conversion (TC) for Morrowind. It is designed for fans of the Ultima series of games and those who would like to make their own Ultima games or remakes using the Morrowind engine. You may use the mod for your own games, all I ask is you give me credit by leaving my initials engraved in the bottom of Britanny Bay.

The project website (www.cjmcaulay.com) has been down for some time but the author did publish some of his work before the site disappeared. It is now hosted here.


42    Dragon Engine

It LOOKS like Castle Britannia... It LOOKS like Castle Britannia...

Produced By: Litmus Dragon
Status: Inactive

Downloads:
  ·   Beta 1.0 (2.9 MB)

The Dragon Engine is an effort to build a game engine that resembles Ultima IV or V. At present, the author is no longer developing the engine and the project lacks any kind of web presence other than this brief segment. Litmus was planning on creating a sourceforge page for the engine and transfer control of the project to someone else. But that was many years ago - and several attempts to reach him have failed.

The last release, beta 1.0, is available for public use.


95    Exult 3D

Lighting effects in Furnace Lighting effects in Furnace

Produced By: Sam Matthews
Web Site: www.sammatthews.com/images/Exult3D/

This is an Exult enhancement, currently in development, which will allow one to play Ultima 7 using its current graphics, but in 3D. The images are fairly impressive. For more information, check out this thread on the Exult forums.


41    IRE (IT-HE RPG Engine)

IRE's interface is designed after U6. IRE's interface is designed after U6.

Produced By: Doug the Eagle Dragon
Web Site: ire.sourceforge.net
Status: Active

Downloads:
  ·   IRE v0.93 (Windows) (1.7 MB)
  ·   IRE v0.93 (Linux MDK8.1) (2.1 MB)
  ·   IRE v0.93 (DOS) (2.5 MB)
  ·   IRE v0.93 Source (2.6 MB)
  ·   IRE v0.93 Demo - The Flat (2.5 MB)

IRE is an open-source game engine based on the Ultima VI interface. There are builds currently available for DOS, Windows, Linux, and BeOS; or recompile from the source if desired. The engine requires the Allegro game library and libjpeg 6b.


107    Nazghul / Haxima

Welcome to the shard... Welcome to the shard...

Produced By: Gordon McNutt
Web Site: myweb.cableone.net/gmcnutt/nazghul.html
Status: Active

Downloads:
  ·   Nazghul 0.5.6 (Win32) (2.1 MB)
  ·   Nazghul 0.5.6 (MacOS X) (2.8 MB)
  ·   Nazghul Source 0.5.6 (2.3 MB)

Nazghul is a game engine inspired by the Ultima series. The graphics and interface resemble Ultima 4/5 (but in a slightly higher resolution and color count). It also ships with Haxima, a game written under the Nazghul egine.


102    Project Britannia

A moongate in the forests of Yew A moongate in the forests of Yew

Produced By: Various
Web Site: www.projectbritannia.com
Status: Active

Downloads:
  ·   Build Environment (463.8 kB)
  ·   Milestone 1 (162.9 MB)
  ·   Milestone 2 (169.4 MB)

More of a framework than an engine, Project Britannia is an attempt to model the world of Britannia within the Dungeon Siege engine during the times of Ultimas 5-6. It forms a base for things such as the map of Britannia, conversation trees, and the NPC scheduling system. Thus, it essentially consists of all world, environmental, and operational elements of a game - those parts of the game that are not part of the engine and not part of the story.

While it is primarily so that U5 Lazaras and the U6 Project can share world elements, it is also made with the intention that others can reuse the game world to create their own Ultima-styled games.

For one who is considering contributing to Project Britannia, there are many additional tools and samples available from their website. The Reconstruction is only hosting the releases.

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