Game 185: Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire (1990)

     
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire
United States
Origin Systems (developer and publisher)

Released 1990 for DOS, 1992 for PC-98, 1993 for Sharp X68000

Date Started: 11 April 2015 

            
Re-use of a game's "engine" appeared in some of the earliest RPGs. For instance, Epyx built a dozen titles off the Dunjonquest engine between 1979 and 1982, and the programming framework of Wizardry (1981) served untouched for three games and slightly modified for two more, all the way through 1988. Eamon (1980) gave us the first engine specifically built to be modular, and Stuart Smith offered us a "construction set" for RPGs in 1984. By the end of the decade, we'd be knee deep in "Gold Box" games that offered the same interface and mechanics, and almost all of them are great games. These days, the fact that a game re-uses a popular engine is a selling point, not a point of criticism.

Given that, it's always surprised me how reluctant Origin was to re-use its Ultima engines. Ultima V, in particular, was brilliant. It could have sustained titles all the way through the mid-1990s and I'd be raving about them. But they used it once.

Thus, it's a good thing that the company got some additional mileage out of Ultima VI, one of the best game engines we've seen so far. Yes, none of us like how limited the map window is. Let's get past that. No other top-down game of the era--and few of any era--offers a more complex approach to inventory management and world-interaction. I like the Infinity Engine moderately better for combat, and of course the graphics improved, but in Ultima VI there are a score of things I can't do in the Infinity Engine, or the Aurora Engine, or almost any other engine for that matter, including repositioning objects to get a tactical advantage in combat, smashing furniture, setting fires, and using objects interactively with each other, such as storing common objects in their own bags.

(U)sing a random tree gives you a branch from it. Putting that branch in fire gives you some charcoal.

     
I wasn't looking forward to The Savage Empire going into it, and I still have some reservations about the content, but almost all of my fears evaporated when I started playing the game and remembered how much I liked the "sandbox" feel of Ultima VI. Add to this the detailed dialogue and virtue-based roleplaying that the Ultima series has become famous for, and I'm already hooked.

As with most Origin titles, the manual is particularly well done. It's credited to Aaron Allston, prolific writer of game manuals, D&D supplements, and novels set in the Star Wars universe. This, Wing Commander, and Wing Commander: The Secret Missions--all 1990 games--are his first video game credits. He died a little over a year ago, at age 53, after suffering a heart attack at VisionCon.

The creatively-presented game manual.

        
The manual is presented as a pulp magazine from the early 1900s, most of it written by the Avatar himself using that pen name. ("He's a modern-day adventurer who prefers to keep his identity a secret," the editorial introduction says, "But we've heard of him for several years and can attest to his courage, resourcefulness, and truthfulness." Note how "resourcefulness" replaces "love" in the three principles of virtue here.) The writing has taken place after the Avatar's triumphant return from The Savage Empire, but since this is only the first issue, we only get enough information to impart a backstory and a description of flora and fauna. The backstory covers 16 pages and is recapped in the game's opening screens.

The Avatar has been experiencing disturbing dreams of a faraway jungle and an endangered princess. Lord British has been showing up in these dreams, commanding the Avatar to find out more about a "ruined moonstone," so the Avatar decides to see his friend, Dr. Rafkin, curator of a local Museum of Natural History, because clearly a paleontologist is the right person to analyze a stone capable of opening portals to other worlds. At his office, the Avatar runs into "ace reporter" Jimmy Malone. "Oh, what a file we have on you," Malone says. "Every so often, you disappear for days on end. Usually come back really tanned. Your neighbors are curious about all that, you know...What's the story? You CIA? Helping US-backed rebels somewhere?" Why they don't assume I'm just flying to St. Croix for a long weekend is anyone's guess.

Is this the 1940s?

         
Anyway, it turns out that Dr. Rafkin has been analyzing a damaged moonstone, sent to him by a former student, who discovered it on a dig in Central America. The student's employer, a Dr. Spector, disappeared while examining it. When Dr. Rafkin starts frigging around with the moonstone, it opens a moongate and sucks the Avatar, Rafkin, and Malone into The Lost World, complete with dinosaurs and Amazonian tribesmen. Within moments, they come across a pterodactyl attacking a "she-warrior," Princess Aiela of the Kurak tribe. ("She didn't have the pouty, perfect features preferred by modelling agencies, but oh, she was beautiful.") The four of them manage to kill the beast before they're surrounded by Aiela's tribe. One of the tribesmen looks exactly like Shamino but calls himself "Shamuru."

        
The visitors pass some time with the Kurak people and learn that they're in an isolated valley called Eodon. Princess Aiela has lately been dreaming about someone who looks like the Avatar saving her from an insect creature. Shamuru is agitated because he thinks he recognizes the Avatar but can't place him. The Avatar is forced to explain to his companions about Lord British and Britannia.

I've told you I occasionally do favors for a foreign dignitary who goes by the name of Lord British. That's true. I sort of led you to believe that he was European, that his name was a code-name, but that's not true. British lives in a place--a world--he calls Britannia. I like to think of it as a distant reflection of our world. I get the impression, from his choice of names and other clues, that he's had some contact with our world, but I've never gotten the whole story out of him. [It's hard when all you ask about is NAME and JOB.]

The Avatar is about to go spend some private time with Aiela when the Urali tribe attacks, led by Darden the Huge, who wants Aiela for his own. The attack scatters the companions, the Avatar is knocked unconscious, and Aiela is kidnapped. Begin character creation.

She looks a bit like Courtney Cox, but she wasn't famous yet in 1990.

          
The character creation process mimics the gypsy from Ultima IV but with a tribal wise man in a dirt-floored hut, presented as Intanya, a healer who is trying to rouse the Avatar from unconsciousness. "In order to heal your spirit, Intanya must know your spirit," he says, and progresses through a series of role-playing decisions. 

• You fight a warrior you hate, and knock his spear from his hands. Another blow and he will be dead. Will you (a) let him surrender, and spare him if he does, or (b) slay him where he stands? The fact that I hate him doesn't seem enough to warrant the death penalty. I hope I would choose (a), but who knows what I'd justify when the adrenaline is pumping?

I didn't get this one with my final character. It's the only one that offers a true dilemma.

  

• One warrior borrows another's spear and fails to return it. Days later, he mislays his own spear and you find it. Do you (a) return it to him, or (b) give it to the warrior who is owed the spear? Another warrior's debt is none of my business. No one asked me to get involved in this. It's (a), naturally.

• A huge, powerful warrior stands against you and demands you give him your food. Will you (a) throw his demand in his teeth and attack him, or (b) give him your food, since it is clear he is hungry? This is like the time I got mugged. I'd like to say (a), but in reality I'd probably do what I did in New Orleans, and go with (b). Since this is a fantasy game and I'm creating an ideal character, it's (a).

There's a larger bank of questions--I got different ones when creating different characters--but you only get three of them when you start the game. Instead of determining class, the answers seem to determine your starting attributes.

My starting stats. Don't I look like a proper H. Rider Haggard hero.

        
The game begins with the Avatar waking up to the ministrations of Intanya. In short order, the Avatar is having a dialogue with him, learning the fates of his companions. Scattered after the Urali attack, Rafkin found refuge with the Yolaru tribe to the east, Jimmy ended up with the Disquiqui tribe to the south, and Aiela's fate is unknown but presumably she's a captive of the Urali. Intanya loans his apprentice to the Avatar to help with his travels; the apprentice, Triolo, looks suspiciously like Iolo. He might even be: Triolo claims that he "came stumbling from the jungle, bereft of name and memory" some time ago and was taken in by the Kuraks. Anyway, the Kurak chief wants to see me before I head off looking for my friends.

I hope those wash off.

          
All right, let's get the backstory stuff out of the way. Yes, it's kind of stupid. The Avatar from Ultima IV was supposed to be the player's "avatar," not some specific guy who lives in a specific city, has a friend named Dr. Rafkin, and writes stories for pulp adventure magazines. Yes, Origin has reversed themselves, and the Avatar can no longer be anything but a white male with blond hair. Yes, the stuff the Avatar says about Lord British contradicts previous dialogue and manual text (the Avatar knows he's from Earth). Yes, in the real world of 1990, reporters didn't look and talk like a character in a Howard Hawks film. Yes, the game has perhaps too-literally adapted the conventions of pulp magazines when it comes to certain ethnic caricatures. I thought I was going to go on about all of these things for an entire post. But that's all I'm going to say--one paragraph. I'm going to seal all of that in a box and try to enjoy the game.

Gameplay starts in Intanya's hut, and even in this little space, we can see many of the things possible in the engine. I can (L)ook at the various objects on the floor (the three skulls are magic totems); (T)alk to Triolo or Intanya; search his pot for reagents and (G)et them; pick up some food; get or extinguish the torches on the wall, move the various items around to different positions, and finally open the door to leave.
 

Outside the Shaman's hut.

A couple of tribe members lurk outside. I talk to them. The game's dialogue system hasn't changed from Ultima VI. Everyone responds to NAME and JOB, and keywords that will lead to further conversation are highlighted in red, green, or brown. As in all Ultima titles, dialogue promises to be a huge part of the game, imparting quests and game lore. 

One change soon becomes apparent, though. Outside Intanya's hut, a woman named Tindira tells me that the Kuraks are the greatest tribe, at war with the Yolaru, Urali, and Myrmidex.  The Yolaru are a fierce tribe of black warriors. I'm going to have to talk to a madman named Topuru to find out where the Urali live (he's apparently a Urali defector). The Myrmidex are human-sized insects who "live only to kill." Their nest is to the west.

I then talk to a man named Padrag, and he tells me the same things, using the exact same language. So does the next guy, a tribesman named Enokor. And a woman named Jana, and a woman named Shalan. In all previous Ultimas, there were generic guards and whatnot, but usually all named NPCs have unique dialogue. Here, I guess we're going to see a lot more re-use.

        
The tribe's chieftain, Aloron, does have his own things to say. He's pretty upset about Aiela's kidnapping. He also directs me to Topuru, somewhere on an island in the far north, to learn about where the Urali live. His second daughter, Tristia, is nearby. She seems a little spoiled.

She also looks kind of mean.

         
And that's about it for NPCs in the Kurak village. The game doesn't seem to have a strong opinion about where I should go next. I could seek out Rafkin or Jimmy, or go look for Topuru to get intel on the Urali tribe, or go anywhere else, I guess.

In his initial inventory, Gideon (my Avatar) has only a knife. Triolo comes with a bow, some arrows, and some pouches filled with reagents. The huts around the village have a lot more stuff, including obsidian knives, food, cloth, spears, shields, and torches. I don't know if this is the kind of game where you happily loot that stuff or the kind of game where you lose karma for stealing. Figuring I'm off to rescue their kinsman, I take some food and a few other items from the huts.

Looting food from a house full of jaguar pelts.

         
By the time I'm done, night is falling. Knowing how much of a pain it is to navigate in the dark, I find an empty hut and (R)est until sunrise.
      

The world  map. You start in the upper-center.

       

I head north at first, looking for Topuru, before I realize I don't really have a plan for getting to an island and I don't know exactly where I'll find him on the large map. Since the Yolaru camp is much closer, I decide to turn east and go there.

Well, hell.

           
On the way, I'm attacked by an Allosaurus, who gets Gideon down to 2 hit points before we kill him. Combat in The Savage Empire is absolutely identical to Ultima VI, down to the way you can theoretically program companions to behave in specific ways, but they don't really follow the commands anyway. It was late in the battle before Triolo decided to finally use his bow.

I fight a carnivorous dinosaur with a knife while Triolo helpfully wanders off-screen.

        
Hit points don't regenerate automatically, so it's time to explore the magic system. There are three totem skulls in the game--Heluzz, Aphazz, and Motazz--and three reagent "offerings" you can make to each totem--chocolatl, pinde, and yopo. This leads to nine spells: light, eagle eye, detect hostile creatures, charm enemies, heal, protection, summon animal, curse enemy, and battle frenzy. You cast a spell by (U)sing the appropriate totem and then specifying the offering. I guess you have to be a shaman or shaman's apprentice to cast spells in the game. My Avatar can't, and among my companions, only Triolo can so far. Oddly, the game doesn't let me specify who to heal, but it seemed to figure it out anyway. Unfortunately, it only heals him 4 points, so I cast it a few times.

Triolo uses totems and reagents to slowly heal the Avatar.

        
Later, we fight another quick combat against a deinonychus. This would be a good place to mention that both the Avatar and his NPC companions start at Level 6 or 7. The character that makes the kill gets the experience.

The manual has Professor Rafkin's notes on the various tribes in the valley, and among his description of the Yolaru, we have the first hints that we might either still be on Earth, or that the people of Eodon (an obvious corruption of "Eden"?) originally came from Earth. "Their antecedents are definitely African," he says, and  "their dialect of the common valley language contains elements of what I believe to be Bantu."

I'm so grateful that he didn't say, "What up, blood. What it be?"

         
Rafkin is living among the Yolaru. He's educated them so much that they want him to be their shaman, but he has told them that he'll be their "schweitzer" instead, a clear reference to Albert Schweitzer who was, among many other things, an African missionary.

         
I found him in one of the huts. He seemed glad to see me and offered me recipes for creating bombs and rifles in case they should become necessary. He indicated he'd set up a lab somewhere south or southeast of the Kurak village (how long was I out?!). A simple JOIN got him into my party.

I suspect it's going to be necessary.

A few other notes before I wrap up the first post:

• The interface has redundant mouse and keyboard commands. You could use one or the other exclusively or do what I do and switch flexibly between them.

• There's some evocative background music, some of the most complex we've seen so far in a DOS game, with a a tom-tom beat and African rhythms underlying complex melodies. (It's credited to "The Fat Man" George Alistair Sanger. This was his first year in game music, but he later went on to score Ultima Underworld, The 7th Guest, and The 11th Hour.) Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way to turn it off independent of the sound, and as much as I like the game music, I really don't want it playing while I play the game. Since other sound effects are sparser, and a combat theme appears jarringly every time you see an enemy, I've been playing with the sound off.

• I'm not sure if there's any economy in the game. I don't have any gold (or other currency), and I haven't found any in a few hours of play. The manual doesn't really mention it.

              

Night falls, as it frequently does, and we camp on the road.

Definitely a fun game so far, and I am mildly intrigued to see what happens with the Shamuru/Shamino and Triolo/Iolo mystery. I hope it doesn't turn out to be really, really stupid.