Ultima 0 - Akalabeth, World of Doom

History: Akalabeth was the prequel to the popular Ultima game by Lord British a.k.a. Richard Garriott and it was written by the same author. In fact, the success of this game has inspired him to write the much more complex Ultima I. Akalabeth seems crude compared with modern games, the original Apple II version has no color, no sound and no save game option. But it already had the three-dimensional vector graphic dungeons of Ultima I and II. It also has a small outdoor world with simple tile graphics while the cities and castles offered only conversations in text mode. Obviously Lord British thought Akalabeth was too bad to be re-released or ported to another platform, thus the official Ultima series start right with Ultima I. But the few original copies of Akalabeth in ZipLoc bags by a small company named California Pacific are now highly priced collector's items. Much later, the game was ported to the PC.

The surface map with mountains, a city and a dungeon entrance.

Lord British's Castle is already present in this game.

Background: Akalabeth is set before the events of the Darkness trilogy and the battle against the Triad of Evil. The wizard Mondain has infested the land of Akalabeth with legions of his monsters, thus Lord British looks for a hero which helps him to kill the vermin. You can play the game as a fighter who can use distance weapons or as a mage who can control the magic spells. When you first start the game you should buy plenty of food, there are no monsters on the wilderness map but starvation lurks everywhere. Later you will find gold, weapons and magic amulets in the dungeons. The first task should be to find the Castle of Lord British who raises your stats and bestows quests. You will have to kill more and more difficult monsters for him until he grants you the title of a Lord. In the logical sequel of Akalabeth, Ultima I, you confront the dark lord Mondain himself.

Home, sweet home!

The welcoming comitee.

Recommended Version: The best version of Akalabeth is the one which is included in the Ultima Collection CD as a bonus game. It has some color, a few background songs from Ultima 3+4 and a simple save game option but it doesn't include the title screen of the Apple version. There are also a few fan-made remakes of the game, one even uses advanced graphics of Ultima 7. But I don't recommend them, they are usually buggy and the game cannot be saved.

Shopping in text mode.

3D dungeons have been a revolution in this time.

Statistics:

Single-player game
2 character classes
4 different magic spells
Dungeons 3D, Outdoors 2D, Buildings Text
On-screen-mapping: No
No save game option (present in UC version)
Randomly generated 20x20 map with cities, dungeons and a castle
10 difficulty levels

The Ultima Collection version has a little colour, here you find a blue chest.

Fighting a purple thief in the deeper dungeon levels.

Morale: Akalabeth has no embedded morale or story depth. It was intended as the first work of Lord British to get some programming practice. And he did a good job with that.

Britannia