Yet another classic game is being kept alive on modern systems thanks to open source. UAlbion was pointed out to us recently, as a game engine for Albion the 1995 classic from Blue Byte Studio. When originally released, it was highly rated by critics and a lot of people still love it today.
It is the year 2227, and the gigantic interstellar factory ship, Toronto, cruises toward a lifeless planet endowed with a wealth of minerals. While studying the planet in his shuttlecraft, the pilot, Tom Driscoll, unavoidably crash lands. Against all expectations, he survives to discover his craft has landed in a world rich in flora and fauna, and inhabited by intelligent beings. How could the data on the planet of Albion have been so wrong?
While UAlbion is somewhat playable with you being able to load it up and explore, there's a lot left to do and they could likely use a few contributors. They need to fix up the music system, add in the conversation system, combat system and the list goes on. They said their main goal is to improve the overall usability experience with the modern UAlbion plus some visual improvements and better pathfinding.
Like a lot of other such game engine re-implementations, it needs the original data files which you can find easily thanks to GOG.com. As for the project, find it on GitHub.
Hat tip to RTheren.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
TobyGornow Feb 6, 2020
I have no idea how well (if at all) it runs on a standard Linux system as it was developed with handheld Linux gaming systems in mind (Pyra/Pandora), but it's certainly interesting!
Now we just need a port of it back to the Amiga where it originally started development :D
nerdknight Feb 6, 2020
stickyparadigm Feb 6, 2020
nerdknight Feb 6, 2020
Sounds great. Does someone have a link to the project?Looks like this is the github project.
There's also this version based on the original binary, ported using static recompilation: http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=albion_sr&dp=trueNope, static recompilation means they just take the x86 binary and translated to arm one (Pandora is arm).
I have no idea how well (if at all) it runs on a standard Linux system as it was developed with handheld Linux gaming systems in mind (Pyra/Pandora), but it's certainly interesting!
Now we just need a port of it back to the Amiga where it originally started development :D
I din't know it was originally for the Amiga!
soulsource Feb 6, 2020
Sounds great. Does someone have a link to the project?Apologies, the article editor swallowed the link whole. It's back.
It was never released for the Amiga, but it could be counted as a spiritual successor to a little gem called Ambermoon, which was.Now we just need a port of it back to the Amiga where it originally started development :D[...] I din't know it was originally for the Amiga!
Thalion, the developer of Ambermoon went under shortly after its release, and I assume the remains were scooped up by Blue Byte. Both games basically share the same look and feel, so it's likely a port (or rewrite) of the original engine.
For me, Ambermoon was pretty much the best RPG on the Amiga. But on the PC there were better games than Albion.
Thalion, the developer of Ambermoon went under shortly after its release, and I assume the remains were scooped up by Blue Byte. Both games basically share the same look and feel, so it's likely a port (or rewrite) of the original engine.…and some years later - BAM - Avatar 3D. And I was like: I know that style :D
For me, Ambermoon was pretty much the best RPG on the Amiga. But on the PC there were better games than Albion.
There was also Amberstar, the precursor to Ambermoon - so in my head, that counts as a trilogy that needs to be completed on its original platform ;)It was never released for the Amiga, but it could be counted as a spiritual successor to a little gem called Ambermoon, which was. [...]Now we just need a port of it back to the Amiga where it originally started development :D[...] I din't know it was originally for the Amiga!
Albion actually came far enough in development on the Amiga that a demo was released but unfortunately, with the dwindling Amiga market at the time, the decision was made to drop Amiga support and focus on IBM PCs instead.
Last edited by Cybolic on 7 February 2020 at 2:54 am UTC
Regarding Amiga, I can't see this project ever making its way there, unless Microsoft decides to port .NET Core there as well, doesn't seem a big market these days though :) In the games data files, I think the only clue that it had a past on the Amiga is that some background images use the ancient ILBM format, which I still need to write a converter for, so far I've just been converting those manually with ImageMagick.
By the way, you are all welcome on our Albion Discord ;-)
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