Ultima: Hit Points and Progress

There aren't many common elements that you find in every RPG, but hit points (or "life points," or "vitality," or whatever you call them) may be one of them (if there are any exceptions, let me know). You even find them in non-RPG first-person shooters, although you usually see something like a "health bar" instead of an actual number. This seems obvious to any modern gamer, but remember that to those of us who grew up with parlor video games, and then early console games, the basic unit of health was the "life." In Galaga, or Space Invaders, or Pac-Man, you got three "lives"--and every time the enemy scored a hit, you didn't just lose some portion of your health. You died. Die three times and game over.

Even the earliest CRPG-ish games were "life" focused. Ghosts 'n Goblins is a good example. (I'd have a mansion in Santa Barbara now if I had just invested the quarters I spent on that game as a kid.) You started the game with three lives, and each life started with a suit of armor. Get hit once, you lose your armor. Get hit a second time, you were dead. You basically had two hit points.

Real "hit points" came from pen-and-paper RPGs, of course. Hit points are the glue that holds all RPGs together. They turn action games into strategic games, allowing you to experiment and take risks. And within the game, they are the end-all be-all. When you think about it, almost everything else you acquire or do ultimately boils down to hit points. You buy the best armor to preserve your hit points as long as possible. You seek the best weapons and spells so you can reduce the enemies' hit points before they reduce yours. You quest for rings that protect you from fire, frost, paralysis, and poison--all to minimize your loss of hit points. You level up to increase your maximum hit points. In almost any RPG, if you didn't have to worry about hit points, there wouldn't be any reason not to stroll through the game with cloth armor and a dagger. If anyone ever makes a movie about CRPGs, they ought to call it Hit Points.

Last night I defended Ultima I's practice of awarding hit points, upon exiting a dungeon, for all the monsters you killed while in the dungeon. I rationalized that it "cuts out the middle man" of experience and levels, which hit points are based on. But I realized a flaw in my logic: experience and levels in other games change your maximum hit points, not the number you currently have. The latter is just absurd. And there are no healing spells or potions in Ultima I, making it the only game I know in which when you're low on hit points, you'd better head straight for the nearest dungeon and find some monsters to fight!

Grey Star emerges from a session of dungeon crawling...healthier.

As I write tonight's blog entry, I have 2,556 hit points, up from the 100 I started the game with. Based on the counter, which only has four digits, I'm guessing you can get a maximum of 9,999 hit points. That's some serious health. And you can just buy them! When I was a kid, we had to earn our hit points. Oh...wait. Right.

Anyway, my plan last night was to buy a frigate, but when I got to Scooter's Super Duper Transport, Inc. in Brtiain I discovered they had both aircars and shuttles available. I had forgotten--probably "blocked"--the space-based element of Ultima I. It comes at you with no warning, really. One moment you're fighting orcs with a sword, and the next you're floating about in an air car, shooting your enemies with lasers. People who have never played Ultima I are assuming I'm drunk, but I swear I'm not making this up. After a few hours of play, I lost any need to attack outdoor enemies with regular weapons.

Eat pulses of electromagnetic radiation, thou knave!

So basically I've been flying around and exploring the map. The map--like all Ultimas until Ultima VI--is based on discrete tiles. There are about 250 north-south and 300 east-west, for a total of 75,000 in the game. Bigger than I remembered. Too many to map. I feel like I should also mention for those readers who have never played old CRPGs that all the moves are turn-based. If you just sit in place, the rest of the game world does not continue on around you.

The game consists of four main continents: the Lands of Lord British, the Lands of the Dark Unknown, the Lands of Danger and Despair, and the Lands of the Feudal Lords. Each land has at least one castle with a king who gives you a quest. I completed my quest for Lord British--to find the Grave of the Lost Soul--quite easily. He gave me +10 strength and sent me out again...to find the Grave of the Lost Soul. So much for finding answers. I'm still not clear how to progress in the main quest to kill Mondain, but perhaps once I finish all the various lords' quests once, I'll get some kind of hint. I remember that eventually I'm going to have to buy a space shuttle and head off to shoot some relfighters (again, not making this up).

Some other things:

• I bought a wand but I can't figure out for the life of me how to use it. I can (r)eady it, but neither (a)ttack or (f)ire seems to work with it. In fact, the game asks me incredulously, "Attack with wand?!" like I'm some kind of idiot.

Screw you, Ultima. What else am I going to do with it?

• Even squids and sea monsters give you money. I don't know if they carry it around or if the game is assuming I sell their ink and hides.
• You cannot board pirate ships. That must be in a later Ultima. If you try, they just barrage you with cannons until you die.
• In addition to air cars and space shuttles, you can buy vacuum suits and reflect suits. Just right over the counter.
• If you try to (s)teal from the storerooms of a town or castle, you are swarmed by guards who pummel you to death.
• I know I mentioned this yesterday, but I'm still tickled that Ultima VII's Montor and Fawn show up here in Ultima I. So does Paws from Ultima IV, and there's a city called Moon that I think appears in Ultima III. There are lots of other cities, people, and locations that I don't remember ever appearing again: the City of Wealth, the City of Poor, the City of Imagination, the Pillar of Ozymandais, the City of Snake, the Lost King, the Black Dragon (a king), the Castle of Olympus. But it's been years since I played an Ultima game, so maybe I'm wrong.
• Shamino is here! And he's a king! (He wants me to kill a balron.) And suddenly yet another subplot of Ultima VII makes a lot more sense.
• There are a bunch of signposts on small islands that give you bumps in stats when you (e)nter them (took me a while to figure that out). There's also one that gives you a weapon every time you visit. I think it gives the next best weapon that you don't have. So if you don't have a dagger, it gives you a dagger. If you have a dagger, it gives you an axe. It takes a while to reset. I kept leaving and coming back before I realized I could probably just buy all the lower weapons and see what it gives me at the high end. I did that, made my way back to the post, and it gave me...a dagger. Dammit! Turns out when thieves attack you, they steal all of the non-readied armor and weapons you have. I have to go buy them all again and try again (this time without popping in to a dungeon first).

I'm well past six hours, but I like the game too much to stop, and anyway, it's the first game in the Ultima series. I have to finish this one.

Can anyone else remember any references from an early game in an CRPG series to show up years later?