This blog started out as an attempt to play every Ultima game starting at Akalabeth but quickly changed into a more ambitious (or foolish) attempt to play every game ever developed or published by Origin Systems. Origin have been my favourite developer for years and I’d been collecting all their games but still hadn’t finished half of them and this seemed like a good excuse to start. At the time of writing (Jan 2012), I’ve finished all the games I’m aware of but there are plenty of alternative versions I’d still like to try.
With the Origin games more or less out of the way, I started branching out into playing fan games, games made by Origin’s more famous ex-employees and also onto books. I’ve just about run out of books but there are a lot of games to be going on with and more in the works. Provided it’s long out of print, I’ve been scanning my way through all the books as I’ve been going and there is a sizeable hoard of pdf’s in the downloads section.
Aside from all of that, I write or post anything I come across pertaining to Origin that I’ve not seen on the major Origin sites. Among other things, there are a stack of magazine scans on here of reviews and articles on Origin games and I have a lot more to add when time allows. I had the notion that I would run out of material at some point but I can’t see that happening any time soon.
If you wonder why I started on this, I’ll struggle to come up with a decent answer other than the fun of it (and a clear obsession for the subject). I think the bottom line is that I don’t collect just for the sake of hoarding and filling up shelves. If I buy a game, book or anything else, I fully intend to play, read or at least make some use of it. I may have now reached the point where that isn’t actually possible but the intent is there.
Pix-
Please send me your personal info (Name, email, Skype, phone number, etc.) I’m quite sure that we have much to discuss.
treefortjoe@hotmail.com
Man, I have only just discovered this blog, and I am PUMPED.
Wow, what a great site. Thanks alot for making this. I just stumbled upon this when looking for some manuals for old Origin games. Those games were some of the first I played on the Apple back in the late 80′s and I love them all. I’m not sure what happened to all my old manuals, but I think I’ll try to find them online again to buy. If anyone knows where to find them without paying an arm and a leg please e-mail me. Great site, thanks again, I’m going to enjoy reading all the posts and looking at the pics. -Vec
Most of these games might not be as expensive as you think, provided you don’t go and get them off the first Ebay seller you run into. If you are patient you should be able to get them on Ebay without spending a fortune. If someone has a stupid buy it now price don’t be afraid to haggle. I’ve got people down to 1/3 of the asking price before now. I’d highly recommend Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe at http://yois.if-legends.org which usually has a few Origin games at very reasonable prices. I used to use http://gametz.com/ a lot, although I’ve not tried it in years. Also http://www.gamegavel.com/ is a much cheaper alternative to Ebay although you will be lucky to find what you want as they don’t have a whole lot on there and it tends to concentrate on consoles.
Sry forgot to post my mail addres – Vector@cinci.rr.com
I just now found your site — I’m now going to subscribe and hit your downloads area, since I’ve been trying to get my hands on some of those books for a long time!
I noticed that you have the 1990 version of the Official Book of Ultima (same one I have) up… I just found a PDF someone kindly scanned of the 1992 edition, thought I’d share the link with you in case you wanted to grab it for your site:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/48188850/The-Official-Book-of-Ultima
Thanks for the the sub and the link. I’ve been looking for this book for a while but never seen it at a price I liked. I’ll add the pdf in with the others later today.
Hi there, this site rocks. I thought I’d mention that I am one of the writers of two RPGs heavily inspired by class early Ultimas called Excelsior I and Excelsior II. A friend and I wrote them years ago and sold them as shareware. Partly out of nostalgia we still distribute them through our website and in fact just did a few updates so that they now run well on modern Windows versions. If you are interested in playing an old school RPG, you can check them out at http://www.excelsior-rpg.com.
Thanks, those RPG’s look like just my sort of games. With the Ultima inspiration, you can expect to see playthroughs of them on here eventually. They are on a lengthy list so it could be a while though.
Hey Pix, I got some Crusader stuff you might be interested in. E-mail me at keenanweaver AT gmail.