Akalabeth
| Akalabeth: World of Doom | |
|---|---|
| Studio | Richard Garriott |
| Publisher | California Pacific Computer Co. |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
presumably 1979 , 1980 - 1981 with California Pacific |
| platform | Apple II , DOS |
| genre | RPG |
| Game mode | Single player |
| medium | Floppy disk |
| language | German |
| information | also Ultima 0 |
Akalabeth: World of Doom , which was released for the Apple II in1980, is considered to be one of the first commercial computer role-playing games (although it started as a hobby project) and a predecessor of the Ultima series thatshaped Richard Garriott's career.
Emergence
The game was programmed in BASIC for the Apple II by the then teenage Garriott in the summer of 1980 while he was working at a ComputerLand mail order company in Clear Lake City, Texas (some sources give 1979 as the date, see “ Release Date ” below). Garriott sold the game himself in Ziploc bags until the California Pacific Computer Company acquired the rights and took over its distribution. Akalabeth , Garriott's 28th game in high school, became his first major commercial game.
In his work on Akalabeth , Garriott was largely inspired by Dungeons & Dragons and the work of JRR Tolkien . The game aims to adapt the gameplay of the pen & paper role-playing games to the computer. The player receives the order from Lord British to destroy a series of ten increasingly demanding monsters . The name is derived from Tolkien's Akallabêth , part of the Silmarillion (although Garriott originally called it "D & D28b", the 28th Dungeons & Dragons- inspired game he programmed).
The main part of the game takes place in a dungeon in simple wireframe graphics in the first person perspective , with a simple upper world map and text passages during the rest of the game. Garriott's earlier games, including D & D28, were entirely text-based. For Akalabeth he first added graphics for the Apple II computer.
Of course, Akalabeth's gameplay and graphics are antiquated from today's perspective, but the game attracted a lot of attention. Tens of thousands of copies of the program have been sold, with Garriott making $ 5 per copy sold.
Although it was never explicitly confirmed, Akalabeth is considered to be the first (or "zeroth") part of the Ultima series, a popular and influential role-playing game series. It was integrated into the Ultima Collection , published in 1998 , along with the first eight parts of the actual Ultima series , where it received the official nickname Ultima 0 . The version of the Collection were CGA -Farben and MIDI added -music. It ran on DOS, making it the first official port to a system other than the Apple II, although an unofficial fan version for the PC had been on the Internet since 1995.
Since Akalabeth's original Apple II version was written in BASIC, it turned out to be relatively uncomplicated for users to modify the source code as they see fit. The magical amulet, for example, which originally had unpredictable effects on the protagonist (for example, turning him into a high-level lizard man), could be modified to do this with every use. As a result, the avatar's power was increased to almost immortality. Furthermore, the attributes of the character, which are normally set to quite low, random values at the beginning of the start, could be brought to any desired value.
release date
The majority of sources, including Garriott himself and Origin Systems , give Akalabeth's publication date the summer of 1979. The disc labels of the first version, which he created himself and which he sold in clear plastic bags during his high school days (there is no known complete set from this time, and the number of these sales was given by himself as about 15 pieces) are clearly marked with Marked “© Richard Garriott 1980”. The California Pacific Computer Company's 1980 and 1981 publication dates are not contested.
Ports
Remakes of the title exist , also because the source text of the original was made available originally and later by Origin on their FTP servers .
- for iPhone, iPod and iPad with original author Richard Garriott at AkalabethApp.com
- for J2me - cell phones from dimjon
Web links
- Akalabeth in the Internet Archive (with the option to play)
- Akalabeth - DOS Gamer
- Ultima Collection: Akalabeth ( Memento of May 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) - Images of the first Akabaleth edition
- Player 4 Stage 2: "Why in the world would anyone want a computer at home?" ( Memento of April 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) - The Dot Eaters article about Garriott / Lord British, Akalabeth and more of his games
Individual evidence
- ↑ Akalabeth: World of Doom - Apple II (1979/80) on hardcoregaming101.net "Origin Systems for a time had the original Apple II source code of Akalabeth for download on their website's FTP server"
- ↑ aklabeth.zip ( Memento from October 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) on uo.com (archived)