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  Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash
- Platform: Commodore VIC-20.
- Publisher: Sierra Online.
- Characteristics: Cartridge.
- Includes: Small (appr 10 pp.) manual.
In the July 1983 issue of Compute Magazine was an advertisement
for a VIC-20 game called "Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash". It was to
be published under the SierraVenture line, the same one Sierra used
originally for Ultima II, and for their re-release of the first
Ultima. Unlike those games, Escape from Mt. Drash proved to be very
rare and hard to track down. For a long time, this game was thought
to have been "vaporware", victim of the video game crash of the
early '80s. Finally, though, the author has been found, and the
game's existence confirmed.
Keith Zabalaoui is the president of Atomic Games in Houston, makers of
Close Combat and the V for Victory series. Years ago, though, he
was a friend of Richard Garriott's, and played a minor role in
helping to develop two of Richard's games. One was Akalabeth, where
Keith worked on the monsters. The other was presumably Ultima II,
though his role there is less certain - he may have helped write
some of the story. In 1983, Keith was spending time with Richard in
Coarse Gold, California, which was the headquarters of Online (they
were just changing their name to Sierra Online). Online approached
Keith about writing a game for the Commodore VIC-20, and he created
a simple maze game in BASIC. The object was simple: "You'd go
through a maze, then encounter monsters that you had to fight ala
Swashbuckler. That's about it." As Keith puts it, "It wasn't REALLY
an Ultima game, but Sierra thought it would sell better if we
called it that." The game was released, and Keith made a little
(very little) money off it, and that was the end of the story.
Apparently, Richard Garriott never even knew the game had been
made, or that the Ultima name had been attached to it.
So that's the tale - the game was written, published, and does
exist. To date, though, no working cartridge has yet been found.
Obviously, if anyone finds a working cartridge, please contact me immediately. |
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