Ember by N-Fusion Interactive – A game inspired by Ultima

Ultima isn’t just inspiring people on the desktop, there are big fans of the game on the tablet platform as well. I came across this yesterday and it looks like a whole lot of fun. It’s an RPG called Ember and the developer says one of the main inspirations was Ultima VII.

The game is scheduled to come out later this year, but the screenshots look really impressive and the gameplay sounds outstanding. There is supposed to be full interactivity, day and night cycles, a complete skill tree, 70 quests and even crafting. Is this pocket SotA?

I will have to keep an eye on this one. If it’s anything like the Ultima series, I will have to play it. I’m sure I can fall down a mine shaft, get mauled by a bear and get stabbed in the backside in a portable game just as easily as I can in a full size one!

The top inspiration is a very old and classic PC game that we hold near and dear to us – Ultima VII: The Black Gate. Ultima VII came out in 1992 and was built to run on computers with less RAM and processing power than most of today’s modern kitchen appliances! Despite that, the game is regarded as one of the finest RPGs with its deep story, interesting characters, and fully functional world. In fact, this interactivity pertains to one of Ember‘s main pillars: to maintain a fully-simulated RPG world with day and night cycles, lively NPCs with daily schedules, and tons of responsive objects that would behave as a player would expect of them. We figured if this level of interaction could be achieved on a computer with 4 MB of RAM, then we should be able to do it on a tablet!

N-Fusion and 505’s Ember is Totally Going to be the Next Ultima
The Story of Ember

More brilliant musings about my adventures in New Britannia

• A Brave New World in Ultima IV
• Tracy & Laura Hickman’s Sojourner Tales Board Game
• Sojourner Tales Telethon Countdown
• The entire Ultima Collection is On Sale for 60% off at GOG.com (Good Old Games) – 3 Days Only!!
• It all started with Ultima III
• Tracy & Laura Hickman’s Sojourner Tales Board Game – The Final 12 Hours
• A Question of Virtue
• 1988, Ultima V sends me off to college
• Freegameslist interviews: Richard Garriot
• Jumping Back to Ultima II – If only for a little while