Category Archives: Ultima 5

Chris Launius’ Origin Artwork Photos

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Chris Launius has posted a large number of photos of the original artwork for various Origin games on Facebook. I’d normally leave news like this for other sites but this is too good to pass up with the cover art for Ring Quest, the Times Of Lore map, Ultima 5, Ultima 1 and many others. One of the most interesting items is a hand-drawn box art mockup for Knights Of Legend which is very different to the final version. Head on over to Chris’s Facebook album to have a look at the rest.

KnightsOfLegendArt

If that isn’t enough, he’s also got an older archive with drawings from Martian Dreams, Quest For Clues books and some early drawings of the Ultima 5 cover. Chris apparently saved all of this stuff and much more when it was going to be thrown out after Origin were closed down. All of it going into landfill is unthinkable but this sort of thing is hardly an uncommon story. Good to know it’s all in safe hands now although I inevitably wish they were mine.

On those lines, I agreed to buy most of the remainder of Rhea Shelley’s hoard of Origin memorabilia a couple of nights back. There isn’t so much left now so it’s not quite the bank account crippling expense of last time but it’s enough that I’m certainly going to notice it. There isn’t much documentation but there are some cool Origin nik-naks which I had to have. Expect photos in due course but I’m not even close to going through everything I got the first time around yet. If anyone wants a Crusader poster by the way, I should soon have far more than I could ever need.

Ultima 5 Press Releases

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I’ve a couple of press releases relating to Ultima 5 to share today. First up is this two page news release from September 1988, proclaiming the release of Ultima V on Commodore 64/128:-

Ultima V Press Release Ultima V Press Release Page 2

Two weeks later, Origin also produced one of their regular press releases for the game with the summary on one side and the product fact sheet on the back. I’ve not got the final version of this but I do have the constituent parts. This first page below would have been printed on Origin headed paper when it was sent out:-

Ultima V Press Release Front

This mentions the soundtrack support on the 128 version although the majority of people who only had C64’s might not have seen this as much of a selling point. As an aside, there was a largely forgotten PC sound card (the Innovation Sound Standard) which used the same SID chip as the C64/128. This came out around the same sort of time as Adlib & Roland cards, but perhaps not surprisingly never took off against the competition. It’s got an Ultima connection though as Ultima 6 was one of only 15 games (according to Mobygames) that ever supported it. Getting hold of an ISS card is a near impossibility these days but there are versions of DOSBox around with emulated support if you want a C64 style soundtrack with your Ultima 6. This also applies to Bad Blood and Windwalker.

To get back to the matter at hand, I’ve two versions of the product fact sheet which would have been on the back of the page above. Both are design documents prior to the final version, with the first not having any graphics and the later second version having been rearranged to accommodate the appropriate box image and logos but these logos have been stuck on afterwards by hand:-

Ultima 5 Product Fact Sheet Mockup #1 Ultima 5 Product Fact Sheet Mockup #2

1988 Origin Intro + Quest For Clues II Press Releases

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Updates have been thin on the ground here recently which is likely to continue for a while. I tend to be all or nothing with most things and my enthusiasm for blogging has been waning recently. I had thought about taking a complete hiatus but I’ll just reduce posting to as and when I feel the urge instead. The main distractions are work and a huge backlog of games crying out for my attention.

Having offered far too much money for her Kickstarter, I’ve been playing Jane Jensen’s Gray Matter most of the last week which I’m seriously enjoying. I’m a sucker for point and clicks and this is a about as traditional as it gets, with the sort of involving storyline I would expect from Jensen. When I get that finished, I have near enough the entire catalog of Legend sat on a shelf unplayed which I intend to make a start on.

That isn’t going to leave much time for this site but I’ll fit in some posts and the occasional Origin game somewhere. Today I have the last couple of items in a folder of press releases I’ve been slowly working through. They aren’t the pick of the crop but getting them on here does mean I can finally tidy the folder away. The first of these is a concise 1 page introduction to Origin circa 1988. This describes the company goals, foundations and gives short descriptions of the newest games at the time. It contradicts the official book of Ultima claiming that the move away from Sierra was to achieve greater creative control rather than being due to the poor royalties received on ports but I’m sure there were plenty of factors:-

Origin Press Release 1988

The second scan is a press release for Quest For Clues II from August 1st 1989. This appears to be a test run as it’s not on the usual headed paper and would probably have had a further product spec. on the back.

Quest For Clues 2 Press Release

Origin Sales News Bulletin – Issue #1

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Back in 1987 Origin signed a deal with Broderbund for them to distribute their games. Dating from a year later, this is a scan of the first sales bulletin provided to the Broderbund sales and marketing team. It gives the basic info of the various ports that were just being released at the time + the Ultima 5 cluebook. That cluebook followed some months behind the initial release of the game which definitely wouldn’t happen these days. It also mentions problems with the first version of Ultima 4 on Amiga although it never shipped to customers. This does make me wonder what happened to all those faulty copies:-

Origin Sales News Bulletin - Front Origin Sales News Bulletin - Back

Ultima 5 Review – Computer Gaming World

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This is the full review of Ultima 5 from the May 1988 issue of CGW. It’s got an interesting piece of trivia stating that Roe R. Addams (who consulted on Ultima 4) was represented in the game by Hawkwind and Skara Brae was only in the game since that was where his alter ego came from. He also consulted on Bard’s Tale, which is why the same town is in both games.

Ultima5ReviewCGWPage1 Ultima5ReviewCGWPage2 Ultima5ReviewCGWPage3 Ultima5ReviewCGWPage4Ultima5ReviewCGWPage5

The review is largely positive although there are some complaints about how long combat can take (which I fully agree with) and omissions in the documentation (which I’m less convinced about):-