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Threat of the Trinity Development Blog

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So Close Yet So Far

Jun 07, 2021

Beta testers are going through their second play-throughs

Beta testers are going through their second playthrough, testing the updated content.

After feedback from the first play-through, a substantial chunk of content was added to provide optional pathways to complete the Threat of the Trinity. Concomitant with that, a set of optional quests was included, as well as a complete set of ‘Random Encounters’.

The blog has been a little quiet, but not so behind the scenes. The past few months were a flurry of activity for me, as I overreached a bit and added a sizable slice of new content. In fact, this new chunk of content has more maps/areas than the original game. I just couldn’t help myself I guess.

The beta-testers were split on the difficulty of the overall ‘game’, with one feeling it was hard, but doable. The other felt it was hard, and maybe a bit too hard. Certain aspects of Threat of the Trinity are pretty brutal. Without getting into detail about what that brutality is, I can say that I decided to overcome it, or at least address it, by adding this new content. The beta-testers did not feel that the brutality was bad really, but at least one thought that some alternative pathway, or ways to address the difficulties, would be good.

So I set forth to create a series of ‘optional quests’ which, though not critical, can make certain aspects of the Threat of the Trinity a bit easier to get through. They are non-critical, and a hardcore player could just forgo them and forge ahead with a direct assault on the original content.

While forging ahead with that I decided to finish my partially completed set of random encounters. They are now done and polished and in game. Around 30 encounters, ranging from a lonely campsite in the grasslands, to 6 level lost ruins, complete with treasures, monsters, and NPCs.

Encounter in the Mountains

Another issue I addressed recently, was the need for in ‘town’ saves. Some townes, castles and encounters are quite large, and not being able to save in them might be a bit of nuisance. Some locations have a large expansion of the gameplay found in Maginica, where it is a towne, but you can be attacked. So, taking these points into account, I added in towne saves.

Town Saves, multi-level and horse restore okay!

A couple of more default Ultima IV bugs have been discovered and squashed. I am not sure if they were reported before, but there were a couple I had never seen before.

One was attackable chests in towns. Chests left from combat in townes (rare in default Ultima IV, granted) can be attacked and engaged in combat. Additionally, they talk! They retain the spirit of the NPC who ‘dropped’ them. Weird, bug, which has been sitting there for years, and unknown to most. In Trinity, this bug is gone.

A crazy double bug!!

Another bug, which many DOS players may not have recognized as a bug, but certainly seemed a little odd, was the Inn Encounter bug. Once every 8 inn visits, approximately, the Avatar will take a ‘stroll’ in the night and encoutner a group of rogues. Curiously, his companions will appear in the same spot as him in the combat, and will have to, one by one, step out of the Avatar’s location to engage the enemy. This is not the case in the Apple II original. There, the Avatar chooses to take a stroll by himself, so he engages the rogues alone, without his companions standing directly on his location in the combat map. Makes sense once you think about it, and is clearly a bug. So now, in Trinity, the avatar will once again take a stroll by himself.

The Avatar takes a stroll alone...
The Avatar takes a stroll alone...in Threat of the Trinity

Well then, I am sure the handful who read this blog have one question in mind: When will it be released?

Frankly, it could be released right now. It is 99.9% done. It just needs a final pass to weed out any remaining bugs, and to ensure that the new content works. To that end the Beta-testes are doing another complete playthrough (They are dauntless). Once they are done, and they and I are satisfied, then it will be 100% done.

When it is 100% done, I will think about a release date. And a release method. I am a little loath to do a digital release. In this day and age, downloading an app or a game just seems so cheap and trivial. Digital distribution has taken away the wonder of buying a game with a box, a map, booklets and other goodies (maybe digital distribution hasn’t taken this away, but they are certainly two extremes). I don’t feel it would be really right to distribute this ‘mod’ digitally, considering the origin of the game, and its place in the legends of ‘feelies’ releases.

Ah, the good old days of feelies.

I might have to poll my audience, and see if there would be enough interest in a feelies release. I estimate I would need a minimum of 20 people to really make a feelie release affordable. Unfortunately, that is about twice as many people as I think follow or are aware of this mod, let alone interested in shelling out cash for something.

Maybe a feelie release on the cheap…ziplock bag and a couple of labelled disks. Not quite a box with manuals, but at least it is not digital.

In any case, until the game is 100% done, we shall see.

19 Comments

Magicman

Thanks for the update! Given the influence Ultima IV had on my childhood and my interest in challenging yet inspiring video games, I’d like to share that with my friends and kids. The latter might be turned off if the game is toooo hard. :) Vanilla was especially harder because there was no internet back in the day to unblock yourself. As long as its fairly easy (not obvious) to find alternatives in game, I’ll trust you and your tester’s judgement on brutality :)

As for feelies, I’m all for it. Both as trophies for me, as well as hopefully return some support for what you’ve created!

Cambragol

I actually made Ultima IV the very first game my kids played. They were not turned off by anything in it, because it was all fresh new and amazing for them. My youngest completed it at age 6!

I think most kids today have been exposed to ‘modern’ games, which in a way corrupts their perception of anything older. They can only see games through the lens of their own experience. Unfortunately that ‘lens’ is mostly composed of flashy, hi-data rate visuals, and simplified, hold your hand, gameplay. It’ll be hard for many, if not most, to fully enjoy a game like Ultima IV, let alone a souped-up version like Trinity.

I think many adults suffer from this same syndrome. We’ve all been on the ‘better graphics…ooooooo!’ train before.

Feelies would be nice, or at least a full rendering of them. However, it is a distant possibility only at this point. I am intent on it still though, as it is a way to bring some permanence to what I have created. A purely digital release has no value for me. The feelies added enough to the experience of Ultima IV, that I think they helped elevate it above other games I played over the years, that had no physical substance to them. That lack of physical substance game them less room in my memories. Less ‘weight’.

Frank

I cannot remember the last time I was this excited a game concept. Having grown up playing Ultima in young adulthood it carries a special place in my heart. Ultima is even in a way, a refuge of sorts. A place to go and get away crazy times we’re living in. It’s great to see you expand this game in such a respectful manner. If you stick with the program, you cant help but have a great game because it already is. I agree you fully about how games used to be distributed in a way that can be cherished. It’s the same reason people react they do to old physical photos. Its there, you can touch it. Like someone you love. That gives it a soul which no digital download will ever possess. All I have say is shut-up and take my money. If you have a list of people you will contact when you release, (especially the feelies) I would love to be on it. God Bless.

Cambragol

Very glad to hear of your interest Frank!

I’ll count you in on my informal ‘list’ of people interested in a feelies version. Sadly, I have been unable to reach or find artists interested in commissioned work for a high-grade feelies release. Nevertheless, I am leaning away from a digital release. Likely that will tee-off a few people, who just quietly expect an eventual digital download.

Cambragol

No, this is a pure DOS game, so you will need to run it in an emulator, such as DOSbox. Fortunately there are quite a few good emulators out now, that can make gaming in dos very smooth, almost native like.

Frank

Ah yes, god ol’dos box. You could probably get the modern day equivalent (thumb-drive) shaped like an ankh and make it work for the feelies. Since you probably only need liek 250K as opposed to 1MG capacity you could probably find get them cheap.

Cambragol

I hadn’t even thought of usb/thumb drives, and was zeroing in on actual 3”1/4 disks for a super-genuine effect. The whole game/addon would fit on one side of a 3 1/4 floppy. But, I would probably need to make a concession to modernity for people to get the game onto their pc. Still, even usb/thumbdrives are becoming obsolete. My laptop has moved on to usb-c, so old thumbdrives are useless for me (without an annoying little dongle/adapter)

A trinket probably would not be an ankh, but rather something related to ToTT itself. Maybe a mini-skull or Orb of the Moon. Not sure…

Frank

Thought at all about using Exodus: Ultima 3 for a similar project? With the registry of characters that game had going for it it would make a very rich environment for added sub quests as you describe for Trinity. I still enjoy tweaking characters in 3 and goofing around with it.

Cambragol

I actually never played Ultima III (at least back in the day)! So, no, I have not thought about modding it. I do know that someone remade Ultima III awhile back, though I can’t remember the project name. I think it let’s it run on Macs etc. If it was rewritten, it might be possible to add stuff.

I did think about this for Ultima V. For me Ultima V is the ultimate ‘scale’ for a computer rpg. However, no one has reverse engineered it. The only reason TotT is able to exist, is because it was reverse engineered by Ergonomy_joe. I started the project attempting to make it work with Xu4 (because you cannot really add anything to stock Ultima IV DOS), but xu4 is not ready for primetime, and was not nearly an accurate enough recreation of Ultima IV for my liking. When looking around for alternate solutions I discovered Ergonomy_joe’s work, and realised I could now do ANYTHING in a near original version of Ultima IV.

And here we are. I wonder if Ultima III has been reverse engineered?

Frank

That Exodus build almost makes me wish I had a mac. Almost, but not quite. The ability to change out character parties is something Exodus had over Avatar that makes it very rich as well. Twenty slots for characters and change them out at will. Pretty nice.

Cambragol

I wrote code to add in the Inn function from Ultima V. You could leave party members at any inn, then pick them up at a later date. I also added code to kick a party member, at which point they would return to their home. Later, if you talked to them again, they would respond accurately and ask if you wished to them to set forth with you.

However, I did not include this code, as it was of no use unless you could add in new/different party members from Ultima IV base. That would have required some extra coding, and could have messed up the save game compatibility with default (which is still 100%).

So unfortunately, that code is on the cutting room floor.

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