Universal Lowlander (By Flat Black Films)

Maybe your little guy was very hungry.

 

I've been compulsively playing Lowlander, great game.

A few observations:
Enemy AI is sometimes odd, instead of going around treasure chest or other enemies to attack from diagonal or side they just wait in line.

I accidentally tossed Breath of Life by quickly tapping the screen to unintentionally selecting “forget it.” Maybe defaulting to a different option would be more conservative.

It seems possible to circumvent the food mechanism by overstocking on food, it might be worth considering a limit on how much food can be carried. Right now I have over 600 food units (plus 4 rations) because I wasn’t sure what else to spend my money on (and now have 558 coins with steel sword and steel plate). Edit: Wow, what a trek followed this comment; need more food already - good stuff.

Fingers crossed.

 

Ah! That was it. Good to know. After I was set to quit I decided to test how well I measured up to the castle guards, figuring it would be no big deal if I died. Apparently I was wrong.

Is there any way to load from a save without dying a final death?

 

I agree the food balancing at the start of the game is very broken - running around killing rats for 2GP each in order to buy a loaf of bread before you starve, is not fun.

I would go one step furher and ask why have a food/hunger system at all? All it usually does it discourage exploration (which is typically bad), it isn't either fun or challenging. I see food management as one of the worst aspects of 80s game design, and something definitely best left in the past - in general most games that used this mechanic either had too little food which meant you couldn't explore, or too much food in which case it just added a pointless layer of inventory management. There are very few games that have had a food system which has actually added something to the game (Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup being a rare exception)

It's a shame because it seems like it could be a fun game, but I want to be spending my time doing fun/challenging stuff, not killing rats to buy food (I've died twice already, both times due to starvation since I couldn't find enough rats to kill before my food ran out).

 

I like the food mechanic myself; it is initially frustrating to get the first balance going but when you get to Lowlander's labyrinth dungeons or vast overworld it's fun trying to manage resources as your explore unsure if you can make it but pushing on anyway. After you get further the food never feels impossible. Some early battles give you as much as +6 gold so keep trying, use manual saves between battles if you need to so you can get a stranglehold on things - once you pass the first part of the game it really pays off.

 

Hmmm. When I go back into the game, i never have to load. It just says welcome back. I haven't ever been able to load unless I die.

As for the food, it's true to Ultima. I just started playing Ultima I again tonight, and there's food to track. That said, you don't lose food in towns or castles in Ultima I, which would be nice in this game as well.

Edit: in Ultima II though, it does keep,dropping in towns. Now that I've played it again for the first time in decades, I can see that was your inspiration. I really like your graphics better than in the version of U2 that I got from GOG. Yeesh.

 

Bsabiston, nice game y'all.

I am, unfortunately, finding some nasty post-Temple Tantrum bugs.

1) Nessies spawning on land tiles. Lolwut.

2) When killed on sea and breath of life kicks in, ship doesn't rematerialize like the game indicates. I look around Yeorke but I don't see anything.

Other than that I also agree with fixing the food purchasing at the beginning. Maybe give an option for 16g for 50-75 food?

 

I havent seen any landbound Nessies yet but that sounds awesome enough to be more like a feature than a bug.

 

I think the land Nessies and dying out on sea may be connected too. I'll head back to Tantrum when I have a moment to see if I can't find it there. I'd need the extra gold from baddies on the way anyway for higher end armor.

Also another thing that came to my mind; when I revived, I noticed that a ship icon appeared two tiles south of the King. I mindlessly walked on it, tried talking to him again, then left the castle, returned and saw it was gone. That might have caused the land Nessies or disappearing ship.

How would I recall an earlier save? It only looked like it only allowed one save. (You might want to add more saves if this is the case, even if it's just one more.)

 

I swear there was a land bound Nessie in Ultima II.

 

Totally loving this game - really not as hard as some have made out, just got to strategically grind at the early levels - plus fighting monsters that only action every second turn is a doddle: attack, retreat, attack, retreat.

One thing I've not figured out - lock picks. How do they work?

Also - and I've only cleared about three dungeons - the royal garden; what's in there? Has anyone got into the stash of chests at the royal palace?

 

Update to make early game easier is out on Google Play; I suspect it'll pop up on iOS in a few days.

 

Due to the adoration being showered on the game, despite several failed starts, I took a different approach in attempt to get past the initial challenge, reach a city alive with enough gold to buy food. This was accomplished by traveling "sw", saving the game, exploring, reloading as I reach dead ends in the landscape, until I found a city. While I didn't find Yorktown (as intended) I did reach Broderbund, where I was able to establish a home base to grind from.

Because the average gamer will turn off the game before they utilize such a tactic (exploiting save game) the dev could solve the entire issue if the game began, with the player starting outside of a city, with the first quest being traveling to the capital to head the kings call for a hero.

Outside of that, while the graphics are quaint, with its heavy use of fuchia and lime green fills, Lowlanders tiles are more reminiscent of the PC version of Ultima IV which utilized the limited 4 color pastel palette of IBM's CGA video card. Garriots original tile sets (used in Apple, C64, EGA versions) used primary colors sparsely drawn against a black backgrounds. The difference is significant, as Garriots heavy use of black backgrounds in the early games, defined the look we associate with Ultima; very sharp, high contrast, 4-frame, animated tiles. Garriott didn't start "stroking" objects with black outlines (the style utilized in Lowlander) until Ultima 6, the first isometric presentation used in an ultima and really, the first version that broke away from the "old school" look of the classic Ultimas.

Ok, I know I over analyzed this, but my point being, while I believe there would have been no shame in replicating the high contrast style of ultima, if the devs intent was to make Lowlander remind us of ultima, whiteout doing so, I'd say he was successful.

 

Anyone find the dwarf boots alluded to in the rumors? Can't seem to find them in any dungeon or village.