Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness - Gameplay

Gameplay

The world of Ultima is presented in a variety of different ways. The overworld is projected in a topdown, third person view, while dungeons are displayed in an isometric, first person design. In both scenarios the player character is controlled with the keyboard directional arrows, and shortcut keys are used for other commands, such as A for attack and B for board.

Character creation at the start of Ultima is not unlike a simplified version of traditional tabletop role-playing games. The player is presented with a number of points to distribute between various statistics that will affect his competence in certain aspects of gameplay. For example, adding numerous points to the strength statistic will increase the potential amount of damage inflicted on a foe. Once this portion of creation has been completed satisfactorily, the player is given a choice of four races: Human, Elf, Dwarf and Bobbit (a hobbit-like creature). Depending on the race picked, points will be added to various statistics (e.g.: Elves are often seen as being lithe and agile, so points are added to the agility statistic). Once a race is chosen, the player is given a list of four classes to choose from, which also distribute more points to appropriate statistics. These classes are fighter, cleric, wizard and thief. The player is also asked to choose a gender for their player character, though this is purely cosmetic.

Four other statistics are important and imperative to successful game completion. These are hit points, food, experience points and coin (gold in the original release). Hit points determine the health of the character; the more HP the character has, the further away they are from death. They can be obtained in a variety of ways, including the acts of emerging alive from a dungeon and of giving tribute payment to one of the eight lords of Sosaria. Food is consumed every tile that the character moves, and if the food supply drops to zero, the player will starve. Food can be bought in towns to prevent this situation occurring. Experience points are received by successfully doing battle with monsters. They determine when the character levels up; one thousand points are needed to progress to the next level. A vital item near the end of the game cannot be obtained until the player has reached the eighth level. Coin, or gold, is used to buy things in the game world, such as weapons, spells and food, and can be obtained by defeating monsters or rescuing princesses from castles.

The magic and combat systems in Ultima are simplistic. Spells are bought from shops and used as consumable items, each spell purchase having one use only. Combat is against randomly appearing enemies; it consists of each party attacking the other until one has fled or been defeated. In the original release of the game, enemies in the outdoor areas do not move around in any way but simply appear at the player's current location and immediately initiate attack; enemies in the dungeons are also random, but can move and follow the player. Buying more proficient weapons and armor improves the chances of succeeding in battle.

The game also sports an arcade-like first-person space shooter section of gameplay, an element that only appeared in Ultima and not the subsequent games in the series. The player participates in a real-time space combat environment, confronted with enemy spaceships that they must shoot down in order to progress further along the story. Richard Garriott says he added this just because he wanted to fill up every space there was on the disk, and do everything he possibly could.