This spin-off, which was more of an action-focused game set underground, used an ahead-of-its time 3D game engine which allowed for unprecedented player freedom in how they handled situations. In 1993 Ultima Underworld was released by the acclaimed Looking Glass studios. Ultima VI: The False Prophet (1990), which was the first game predominantly targeted at more advanced home computers such as PCs and the Commodore Amiga, went a step further by having Britannia invaded by Gargoyles but then encouraging the player to find a peaceful solution through diplomacy and investigation (although a certain degree of combat is unavoidable). However, Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985) introduced the "virtues" systems of morality and encouraged players to experiment with dialogue and puzzle-solving as alternatives to killing everything in sight. The first three Ultima titles are predominantly action-driven games with most situations resolved through violence. The game was developed by Richard Garriott as a spiritual successor to Akalabeth, an earlier (1979) roleplaying game with a Tolkien Estate-baiting title. ![]() ![]() Later games would retcon the player as the Avatar, a vitally important warrior who holds the fate of the world in his hands. In doing so, they won the allegiance of the noble Lord British, who would go on to appear in subsequent games in the series. The game had a fairly involved plot (by the standards of the time) with the player having to fight the evil wizard Mondain for control of the kingdom. It used primitive graphics to depict a fantasy kingdom named Sosaria (renamed in later titles as Britannia), with the player controlling their character from above. Released in 1981, Ultima was one of the very first computer roleplaying games. You had to bring a lot of imagination to these early games. Numerous titles followed, among them the highly-acclaimed adventure game version of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Leather Goddess of Phobos, but Zork was where it began. The developers of Zork went on to found Infocom, the trendsetters for the adventure game genre. The lore and storyline behind the game was initially fairly sketchy, but later editions of the game and the numerous spin-offs would come with manuals and booklets filling in the history of the world in some detail, mirroring how early fantasy novels are often light on such details but then fill in the worldbuilding later on. Despite its toughness, the game soon won a devoted audience who praised the freedom of the game, which allowed players to explore the dungeon as they wished and approach puzzles from multiple angles. Being trapped in a tunnel without a light source is also invariably fatal, with the game notifying the player that they have been "eaten by a grue". The trilogy is extremely hard, with solutions to puzzles only becoming obvious through trial and error. Using text descriptions and commands, the players moves deeper into the ruins, gaining treasure, defeating enemies, solving puzzles and eventually assuming control of the underground lands as the Dungeon Master. The games depict the player as an unnamed adventurer exploring the ruins of a once-mighty subterranean empire. It was too big to fit into one title, so it was split, epic-fantasy style, into three distinct games: The Great Underground Empire (1980), The Wizard of Frobozz (1981) and The Dungeon Master (1983), better-known as Zork I, Zork II and Zork III respectively. Playable by MIT students on the university mainframe in 1977, the game was released for home computers in 1980. ![]() Zork rapidly expanded beyond their original plan, which was to simply update Colossal Cave Adventure with more advanced technology, and ended up being absolutely massive in size. The game was created in 1977 by computer students at MIT, impressed by a primitive text adventure called Colossal Cave Adventure. It's arguable what the very first fantasy game was, but Zork has a strong claim.
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