What’s new in Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness v2.5.1
v2.5.1 - 2026-10-02 - Hosted launch repair.
- Lightweight index.html loads the original cover, styles, and game code from packaged files.
- Removes the large embedded cover data URI from the hosted HTML response.
- Keeps mobile atlas zoom inside its scroll area instead of widening the dialog.
- Cover, controls, gameplay, atlas, contracts, and checkpoint schema are unchanged.
- Offline play: extract the full ZIP and keep index.html beside assets/, css/, and js/.
- Existing v2.1-v2.5 checkpoints remain compatible; use the same browser and site.
- The hosted 2.5.0 page reproduced HTTP 500; separate assets downloaded completely.
- This package avoids that failing HTML payload. Live confirmation requires publishing 2.5.1.
v2.5.0 - 2026-10-01 - Roads of Sosaria.
- World atlas (M) displays surveyed terrain, known destinations, and currently visible creatures.
- Hex selection by pointer or keyboard, terrain legend, 100-300% zoom, and scroll-to-pan.
- Route previews use only explored, passable land and respect wrapping hex-map edges.
- Walking distance, food cost, remaining supplies, and minimum starting provisions are shown.
- Set a waypoint while exploring the world, a town, or a dungeon; travel begins only on the surface.
- Gold route markers on the main world map and a dedicated Walk / Resume control.
- Encounters, manual movement, dialogs, Escape, Stop walking, or focus loss pause automatic travel.
- Automatic walking preserves one food; manual movement retains the existing survival rules.
- Waypoints survive interruptions and checkpoints. Loading never resumes automatic movement.
- World click-to-walk now uses explored routes instead of unseen terrain.
- v2.1-v2.4 saves remain loadable. Schema 3 is retained; v2.4 can load new saves but drops the waypoint.
- Updated tutorial, seven-page manual, and atlas screenshots; original cover and prior gameplay retained.
v2.4.0 - 2026-10-01 - Towns and Triumphs.
- Six one-time civic contracts across the four towns and two castles.
- Objectives reward battle victories, mapped floors, opened chests, overworld surveys, and dungeon conquests.
- Contract ledger (Q) shows progress, rewards, issuing settlements, and claim status; local contract appears first.
- Recorded achievements count before acceptance; acceptance and reward collection require the issuing settlement.
- Town services (U or T) offer an inn, expedition provisions, shops, and local contracts.
- Inns restore full health for 25 gold without ambush or food consumption.
- Expedition restock fills food to 250 at 1 gold per 5 food, rounded up.
- Equipment offers show actual STR/DEX gains and prevent duplicate or ineffective purchases.
- Food shops price partial bundles and prevent spending gold at full capacity.
- Town purchases, inn stays, restocking, acceptance, and claims create immediate checkpoints.
- Contract totals in the sidebar and a ledger link in the explorer journal.
- Schema-3 checkpoints retain contracts; v2.1-v2.3 saves migrate with existing exploration intact.
- New backups require v2.4 or later. Original cover, tactical combat, and persistent dungeons retained.
- Updated tutorial, six-page manual, and screenshots.
v2.3.0 - 2026-10-01 - Steel and Survival.
- Visible enemy intentions: Strike, Heavy blow, and Recover, with damage previews.
- Battle focus starts at 1 of 3; Attack and Guard build focus for Power Strike.
- Power Strike (P) spends 2 focus for 1.8 times normal strike damage.
- Guard (G) reduces incoming damage by 70% and gains 1 focus.
- Mend (H) spends 15 food to restore up to 25% maximum health before the enemy turn.
- Magic retains its 20-food cost; battle buttons show costs and availability.
- Responsive combat panel, keyboard shortcuts, and live battle log.
- Defeat or starvation rescues the hero to a town with half health and at least 40 food.
- Rescue loses 10% gold (rounded down) while preserving equipment, experience, and dungeon progress.
- Continue after rescue writes an exploration checkpoint and records the rescue in the journal.
- Failed combat escape now takes the announced enemy turn and can trigger rescue.
- Existing v2.1 and v2.2 checkpoints load; schema 2 is unchanged.
- Updated tutorial, five-page manual, and gallery screenshots; original cover retained.
v2.2.0 - 2026-10-01 - Maps and Memories.
- Dungeon floors persist across stairs, dungeon exits, save/resume, and JSON backups.
- Opened chests, cleared monster tiles, and explored passages remain as discovered.
- New floors place up stairs at the entry and down stairs at the farthest reachable passage.
- Reciprocal stair arrival points connect neighboring floors without regenerating them.
- Dungeon atlas (V): enlarged maps, visited-floor selection, facing marker, and terrain legend.
- Optional routes to discovered stairs use explored passages only; no character movement is automated.
- Explorer's journal (J): floors mapped, chests opened, victories, steps, known settlements, and milestones.
- Supply and health advice for expedition preparation.
- Enter uses stairs; Leave dungeon or Escape confirms a return to the surface.
- Checkpoint schema 2 stores the whole explored expedition; v2.1 schema 1 remains importable.
- Current manual, tutorial, and gallery screenshots; illustrated cover retained.
v2.1.0 - 2026-10-01 - The Continuing Quest update.
- Save and Continue with automatic exploration checkpoints every 10 seconds.
- Restore character, equipment, gold, food, fog of war, town position, and current dungeon floor.
- Export/import JSON backups, with corrupt-checkpoint validation and storage-error reporting.
- Information sidebar on the left, dedicated action controls on the right.
- Quest checklist, exploration percentage, health meter, and supply warnings.
- Map zoom, drag-to-pan, center-on-character, and fullscreen controls.
- Six-direction hex click pathfinding now matches keyboard movement.
- Combat keyboard shortcuts now work inside battle popups; repeated victory rewards are blocked.
- Dungeon escape preserves location; failed escape opens the combat popup.
- Backward dungeon movement now triggers treasure, monsters, and stairs.
- Help opens a dialog without starting or resetting a quest.
- Updated illustrated cover retained; index.html remains standalone and offline-capable.
v2.0.1 - 2026-10-01 - New cover artwork.
- New illustrated Ultima I cover on the title screen and catalog artwork.
- Responsive opening screen preserves the full cover without cropping.
- High-contrast start/help controls with visible keyboard focus.
- Cover embedded in index.html for offline, single-file launching.
- Ignore gameplay key commands while title/character menus are displayed.
v2.0.0 - 2026-07-22 - The Full Chronicle update.
- Character creation: Race (Human/Elf/Dwarf/Bobbit) x Class (Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Thief) x Sex
- Pointy-top hex overworld (32x32) with seamless wrapping in all directions
- Fog of war on the overworld: unseen / explored (dim) / visible states
- Roaming animated creatures (Orc, Skeleton, Troll, Daemon, Serpent)
- Mouse click-to-move with BFS pathfinding; keyboard hex movement (W/E/D/X/Z/A)
- Hexagonal towns with six shops around the perimeter and a central fountain
- Gray stone town floors; animated NPCs
- Multi-level dungeons (3-10 levels deep, averaging 5), each independently generated
- Textured first-person cave dungeon view with rocky walls and torch vignette
- Stairs up and down; dungeon minimap with fog of war
- Camping and resting to recover health over time (with ambush risk)
- Full combat inside a popup with animated enemy sprite and HP bars
- Hover-for-stats on creature encounters
- Space travel: real-time flight with a parallax starfield
- Space combat: destroy 8 enemy vessels (fighters and heavies)
- Final boss battle against Mondain and the Gem of Immortality
- Victory ending screen with final chronicle and New Quest option
- Spaceship revealed only after all dungeons are conquered
v1.0.0 - 2026-07-14 - Initial Tronsoft Games release.
- Title screen, character creation, tile overworld, towns, first-person dungeon, combat.
- Lightweight index.html loads the original cover, styles, and game code from packaged files.
- Removes the large embedded cover data URI from the hosted HTML response.
- Keeps mobile atlas zoom inside its scroll area instead of widening the dialog.
- Cover, controls, gameplay, atlas, contracts, and checkpoint schema are unchanged.
- Offline play: extract the full ZIP and keep index.html beside assets/, css/, and js/.
- Existing v2.1-v2.5 checkpoints remain compatible; use the same browser and site.
- The hosted 2.5.0 page reproduced HTTP 500; separate assets downloaded completely.
- This package avoids that failing HTML payload. Live confirmation requires publishing 2.5.1.
v2.5.0 - 2026-10-01 - Roads of Sosaria.
- World atlas (M) displays surveyed terrain, known destinations, and currently visible creatures.
- Hex selection by pointer or keyboard, terrain legend, 100-300% zoom, and scroll-to-pan.
- Route previews use only explored, passable land and respect wrapping hex-map edges.
- Walking distance, food cost, remaining supplies, and minimum starting provisions are shown.
- Set a waypoint while exploring the world, a town, or a dungeon; travel begins only on the surface.
- Gold route markers on the main world map and a dedicated Walk / Resume control.
- Encounters, manual movement, dialogs, Escape, Stop walking, or focus loss pause automatic travel.
- Automatic walking preserves one food; manual movement retains the existing survival rules.
- Waypoints survive interruptions and checkpoints. Loading never resumes automatic movement.
- World click-to-walk now uses explored routes instead of unseen terrain.
- v2.1-v2.4 saves remain loadable. Schema 3 is retained; v2.4 can load new saves but drops the waypoint.
- Updated tutorial, seven-page manual, and atlas screenshots; original cover and prior gameplay retained.
v2.4.0 - 2026-10-01 - Towns and Triumphs.
- Six one-time civic contracts across the four towns and two castles.
- Objectives reward battle victories, mapped floors, opened chests, overworld surveys, and dungeon conquests.
- Contract ledger (Q) shows progress, rewards, issuing settlements, and claim status; local contract appears first.
- Recorded achievements count before acceptance; acceptance and reward collection require the issuing settlement.
- Town services (U or T) offer an inn, expedition provisions, shops, and local contracts.
- Inns restore full health for 25 gold without ambush or food consumption.
- Expedition restock fills food to 250 at 1 gold per 5 food, rounded up.
- Equipment offers show actual STR/DEX gains and prevent duplicate or ineffective purchases.
- Food shops price partial bundles and prevent spending gold at full capacity.
- Town purchases, inn stays, restocking, acceptance, and claims create immediate checkpoints.
- Contract totals in the sidebar and a ledger link in the explorer journal.
- Schema-3 checkpoints retain contracts; v2.1-v2.3 saves migrate with existing exploration intact.
- New backups require v2.4 or later. Original cover, tactical combat, and persistent dungeons retained.
- Updated tutorial, six-page manual, and screenshots.
v2.3.0 - 2026-10-01 - Steel and Survival.
- Visible enemy intentions: Strike, Heavy blow, and Recover, with damage previews.
- Battle focus starts at 1 of 3; Attack and Guard build focus for Power Strike.
- Power Strike (P) spends 2 focus for 1.8 times normal strike damage.
- Guard (G) reduces incoming damage by 70% and gains 1 focus.
- Mend (H) spends 15 food to restore up to 25% maximum health before the enemy turn.
- Magic retains its 20-food cost; battle buttons show costs and availability.
- Responsive combat panel, keyboard shortcuts, and live battle log.
- Defeat or starvation rescues the hero to a town with half health and at least 40 food.
- Rescue loses 10% gold (rounded down) while preserving equipment, experience, and dungeon progress.
- Continue after rescue writes an exploration checkpoint and records the rescue in the journal.
- Failed combat escape now takes the announced enemy turn and can trigger rescue.
- Existing v2.1 and v2.2 checkpoints load; schema 2 is unchanged.
- Updated tutorial, five-page manual, and gallery screenshots; original cover retained.
v2.2.0 - 2026-10-01 - Maps and Memories.
- Dungeon floors persist across stairs, dungeon exits, save/resume, and JSON backups.
- Opened chests, cleared monster tiles, and explored passages remain as discovered.
- New floors place up stairs at the entry and down stairs at the farthest reachable passage.
- Reciprocal stair arrival points connect neighboring floors without regenerating them.
- Dungeon atlas (V): enlarged maps, visited-floor selection, facing marker, and terrain legend.
- Optional routes to discovered stairs use explored passages only; no character movement is automated.
- Explorer's journal (J): floors mapped, chests opened, victories, steps, known settlements, and milestones.
- Supply and health advice for expedition preparation.
- Enter uses stairs; Leave dungeon or Escape confirms a return to the surface.
- Checkpoint schema 2 stores the whole explored expedition; v2.1 schema 1 remains importable.
- Current manual, tutorial, and gallery screenshots; illustrated cover retained.
v2.1.0 - 2026-10-01 - The Continuing Quest update.
- Save and Continue with automatic exploration checkpoints every 10 seconds.
- Restore character, equipment, gold, food, fog of war, town position, and current dungeon floor.
- Export/import JSON backups, with corrupt-checkpoint validation and storage-error reporting.
- Information sidebar on the left, dedicated action controls on the right.
- Quest checklist, exploration percentage, health meter, and supply warnings.
- Map zoom, drag-to-pan, center-on-character, and fullscreen controls.
- Six-direction hex click pathfinding now matches keyboard movement.
- Combat keyboard shortcuts now work inside battle popups; repeated victory rewards are blocked.
- Dungeon escape preserves location; failed escape opens the combat popup.
- Backward dungeon movement now triggers treasure, monsters, and stairs.
- Help opens a dialog without starting or resetting a quest.
- Updated illustrated cover retained; index.html remains standalone and offline-capable.
v2.0.1 - 2026-10-01 - New cover artwork.
- New illustrated Ultima I cover on the title screen and catalog artwork.
- Responsive opening screen preserves the full cover without cropping.
- High-contrast start/help controls with visible keyboard focus.
- Cover embedded in index.html for offline, single-file launching.
- Ignore gameplay key commands while title/character menus are displayed.
v2.0.0 - 2026-07-22 - The Full Chronicle update.
- Character creation: Race (Human/Elf/Dwarf/Bobbit) x Class (Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Thief) x Sex
- Pointy-top hex overworld (32x32) with seamless wrapping in all directions
- Fog of war on the overworld: unseen / explored (dim) / visible states
- Roaming animated creatures (Orc, Skeleton, Troll, Daemon, Serpent)
- Mouse click-to-move with BFS pathfinding; keyboard hex movement (W/E/D/X/Z/A)
- Hexagonal towns with six shops around the perimeter and a central fountain
- Gray stone town floors; animated NPCs
- Multi-level dungeons (3-10 levels deep, averaging 5), each independently generated
- Textured first-person cave dungeon view with rocky walls and torch vignette
- Stairs up and down; dungeon minimap with fog of war
- Camping and resting to recover health over time (with ambush risk)
- Full combat inside a popup with animated enemy sprite and HP bars
- Hover-for-stats on creature encounters
- Space travel: real-time flight with a parallax starfield
- Space combat: destroy 8 enemy vessels (fighters and heavies)
- Final boss battle against Mondain and the Gem of Immortality
- Victory ending screen with final chronicle and New Quest option
- Spaceship revealed only after all dungeons are conquered
v1.0.0 - 2026-07-14 - Initial Tronsoft Games release.
- Title screen, character creation, tile overworld, towns, first-person dungeon, combat.
- Genre
- RPG
- Developer
- Tronsoft Games
- Engine
- Standard
- Version
- 2.5.1
