Indie DrDungeon's Ultizurk and MADMAN Thread

[Scroo]

Wow, thanks for this thread. I never heard of these, but they are looking like great fun!

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

No response as yet, but give the man some time. It hasn't even been 24 hours.

I forwarded the message across to the .mac and AOL accounts just in case.

Actually, just had an idea...I might contact Vogel and ask him about Dr. Dungeon.

 

[Mortmal]

The 4th one definitely looks really interresting, hope you can contact the guy ,we arent overwhelmed with ultima clones. Not counting on it much, i bet all those mail adress are long gone .

 

[Luzur]

This is why I keep coming to RPG Codex. Also, that picture of the smiling moustache dude looks familiar for some reason.

hmmm, maybe he used some pic of a football star?

also i found Ultizurk III on one of the CD-R, but you got that already.

 

[DrDungeon]

Well! Thank you all so much for contacting me. I didn't know I had become so much of a mystery. Aye, I'm real, I live! I am very happy to be here and see so many like-minded individuals. We all LOVE the classic stuff! Frankly, I think we all miss the classic stuff. Its one of the reasons I'm supportive of outfits like Basalisk and SpiderWeb Software. My own works might not be quite so elegant, but I like to think I can add a bit to this classic stuff we like so
much.

I came onboard at the bequest of a few fine folks who wrote to me, and hopefully can update the stuff I do and am now involved in.
First: ULTIZURK IV: Lord of the Cyclops is alive and well. Sort of! This was a long project and story. Remember that link to the old-looking version? The square one from the old AOL website?

What happened was, I was a little disenchanted that while several hundred people liked Ultizurk III a lot, yet there were several hundred thousand downloaders, which seemed odd. Not everyone will like it, of course, but as I thought it over I realized the fundamental problem with UZ3 was the lack of a deep role-playing system.

Most people liked the story (stranded with a blonde siren in the wilderness!!!) but the combat mechanics were horrible. So I decided with UZ4 to go all out and make a REALLY full-fledged system that would combine all the usable-land and item features ala Ultima 7 in a world and play system somewhat like Baldur's Gate. This proved to be almost more than I could chew!

For three years I worked on UZ4 on Windows using Vb6, but changing screen resolutions proved to be difficult in that language. Then Vista came along and wouldn't play all of Windows WAV files!!!! That's when I switched to a Mac, and also the much more elegant hex-tiles. This is what you see on the newer site.

It IS done but has a few problems! One thing is I need the rest of my music. Using classic stuff as fillers for now. The guy who does the music is involved in Indy film-making and out on a project. But the big problem is resolution, an over-site on my part. I got the 2007 iMac with a resolution of 1920x1200. I was so happy I thought, whee! I can use the whole screen! This was a mistake when about 2 years later I realized a whole lot of people were using notebooks, where the resolution is more in the range of 1280x800. Plus I basically knocked out all the Windows users. For this I apologize. I will need to retro-fit the many graphics to support these sizes, then port to Windows. So its done, minus a few songs, but only on a Mac supporting 1680x1050 or 1920x1200.

This is why it sits in limbo now, until I can get it retro-fitted so everyone can play it.

Now, all the other games I decided to make available for free on my site. REALLY old games, going all the way back to the ZURK text games made on a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III computer!!! These were, of course, in honor of ZORK - still one of my favorites. They run on an emulator and will be on the site soon. There's also a number of newer text games like Babysitter, Spook House, and the never-yet-seen Spook House 3: The Levee. I also plan to make available all the other old graphical games. Apparently, I made more than I realized! I have a playtester friend in Holland right now compiling the full list which I'll post here soon, and start getting it up on the site.

MADMAN is another story. That one did not get the exposure I felt it deserved, and the few who played it liked it. I am right now - using the resources of UZ4, working on MADMAN: Enhanced Edition! It will feature all the functionality of Ultizurk IV in a much expanded MadMan universe, and have no problem on Macs, Wndows and notebooks.
So that's the latest here. Again, I'm happy to join this elite group and hope to make friends here! Until next time, I remain yours,

-Dr. Dungeon
-In The Castle of
-The Mach Gryphon

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Fascinating stuff.

 

[Infinitron]

NEWS: http://aiera.ultimacodex.com/2012/05/the-ultizurk-series/

VisElEchNon May 7, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Okay… I had posted something but I’m guessing the anti-spam filters killed it because there was a link in it so here it is sans link:
Okay, I’ve been in contact with Dr. Dungeon.
He says he’ll be updating his site which has a “Museum” page. He states on the page that all the original games (meaning EVERYTHING prior to Ultizurk IV) are going to be hosted there for download, free of charge.
He also said I should “Let the world know Dr. Dungeon is rising from the ashes.” So apparently he’s still planning to finish Ultizurk IV.

 

[villain of the story]

From that Spiderweb forum thread:

It needs a res of 1680x1050 or higher - more about this later.

I am very curious as to why this resolution was chosen. It seems fairly arbitrary, and it means I will never be able to play it. Which makes me much more likely to lock this thread for being a fairly straightforward ad.

Good to see Jeff Vogel finding such sophisticated and righteous people for upholding precious law and order in his precious little corner of the internets.

 

[Aeschylus]

Awesome, it seems we have caused the developer of one of my favorite bunch of old games to emerge from the shadows! I'm happy to have made the small contribution of jogging your memory.

Well! Thank you all so much for contacting me. I didn't know I had become so much of a mystery. Aye, I'm real, I live! I am very happy to be here and see so many like-minded individuals. We all LOVE the classic stuff! Frankly, I think we all miss the classic stuff. Its one of the reasons I'm supportive of outfits like Basalisk and SpiderWeb Software. My own works might not be quite so elegant, but I like to think I can add a bit to this classic stuff we like so
much.

It's great to know that you're still interested in making games. Creators of classic RPGs are few and far between these days, so it's nice to see old hands still around and active.

Now, all the other games I decided to make available for free on my site. REALLY old games, going all the way back to the ZURK text games made on a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III computer!!! These were, of course, in honor of ZORK - still one of my favorites. They run on an emulator and will be on the site soon. There's also a number of newer text games like Babysitter, Spook House, and the never-yet-seen Spook House 3: The Levee. I also plan to make available all the other old graphical games. Apparently, I made more than I realized! I have a playtester friend in Holland right now compiling the full list which I'll post here soon, and start getting it up on the site.

That would be great. Sadly some of these games have been lost to the ravages of time and/or hard drive failures.

 

[MMXI]

So that's the latest here. Again, I'm happy to join this elite group and hope to make friends here! Until next time, I remain yours,

-Dr. Dungeon
-In The Castle of
-The Mach Gryphon

And the obligatory "stay out of General Discussion" warning.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Never heard of this series, starting with the first one right now

And the obligatory "stay out of General Discussion" warning.

 

[Internet]

Wow. I had never heard of Ultizurk. Will try to install one game later.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Before reading, I thought this was talking about this : http://www.hotud.org/component/content/article/39-rpg/23422

That was terrible.

I actually thought it was all about this one: http://www.download-central.ws/DOS/Games/U/Untima9/

 

[Infinitron]

Before reading, I thought this was talking about this : http://www.hotud.org/component/content/article/39-rpg/23422

That was terrible.

I actually thought it was all about this one: http://www.download-central.ws/DOS/Games/U/Untima9/

Don't forget these:
Ultimerr http://www.hotud.org/component/content/article/38-adventure/22571
Ultima IV Part 2 http://www.80sgaming.org/ultima-parody/

 

[Infinitron]

MADMAN is another story. That one did not get the exposure I felt it deserved, and the few who played it liked it. I am right now - using the resources of UZ4, working on MADMAN: Enhanced Edition! It will feature all the functionality of Ultizurk IV in a much expanded MadMan universe, and have no problem on Macs, Wndows and notebooks.

We'd be pleased if you released the full version of the original MADMAN in the meantime.

 

[Aeschylus]

We'd be pleased if you released the full version of the original MADMAN in the meantime.

If I remember correctly, to register the shareware version of Madman first type '&' then enter 'MACH'. I hope it's acceptable to disseminate this information at this point.

 

[Infinitron]

We'd be pleased if you released the full version of the original MADMAN in the meantime.

If I remember correctly, to register the shareware version of Madman first type '&' then enter 'MACH'. I hope it's acceptable to disseminate this information at this point.

Hey, how'd you learn that? What about Wraith, does that also have an unlock code?

 

[Aeschylus]

Hey, how'd you learn that? What about Wraith, does that also have an unlock code?

I remember weird stuff.

I'm not sure about Wraith. I think the registered version of that might have been shipped rather than unlocked. You'll have to wait from a response from Dr Dungeon about that.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Ah excellent, the Good Doctor has arrived. Looking forward to future developments

 

[Luzur]

so are all the older ones available now?

 

[Infinitron]

so are all the older ones available now?

Not yet. Only the shareware linked in the OP.

 

[DrDungeon]

I'm working like mad on MADMAN right now. Here's two screenshots to compare the old and the new. It uses the UZ4 graphic set and is far snappier with the interface. This is a real early shot. Dr. D.

 

[DrDungeon]

Hmmm. The links to the pics don't seem to be working! You can see them at:

http://web.me.com/drdungeon/Site/MADMAN.html#0

http://web.me.com/drdungeon/Site/MADMAN.html#1
I'm still new at this. -Rob

 

[Aeschylus]

Hmmm. The links to the pics don't seem to be working! You can see them at:

To get the images to show up you have to put in the URLs of the image files themselves, rather than links to the slideshow you have set up. I'll just put them up here...

Old

New

 

[Mortmal]

Ok, warn us when the full versions are online please, I hate to start to get stuck half game. All of those are DOS or some works on windows ?