Nox Archaist – An 8-bit Ultima-inspired RPG Approaching Beta

If you’re interested in some truly old-school role-playing – a new game that you can play on an actual Apple II computer – then you should direct your attention to Nox Archaist. Successfully crowdfunded last year, this Ultima and The Bard’s Tale-inspired project managed to almost slip under our radar. And while unfortunate, this also means that at this point the game is 98% content complete and is almost ready to launch into beta.

To learn more about the game’s current state, you might want to check out the latest Kickstarter update:

The Story Concludes
The water slaps against your face. You find yourself clinging to a broken timber, sand and rocks scraping against your battered limbs. You cannot remember the details, but you have a dim recollection of the shock of icy water, finding the floating timber, and the shouts of men surrounding you. As the night wore on, the cries for help faded away.
You crawl ashore, spluttering out sea water, still clutching your knife. Every muscle aches from struggling against the storm. Now, ship- wrecked and bereft of your sword and armor, how can you hope to investigate the Dark Void and destroy the Cult?
Raising your head, you see a figure approach, carrying a glowing torch. As the figure steps closer, you see that the light comes not from a torch, but from the tip of an oak staff. A black robe envelopes the figure, with a low hood that completely obscures the creature’s face. A Cultist? With a cry you struggle to free your knife from the clinging seaweed. As you look up, you see that the figure is simply standing there, holding out their hand. You slowly take the hand and pull yourself to your feet.
As they lower their hood and smile warmly, you realize that even though you swore to defend the realm from shadow and darkness, perhaps you don’t have to do it alone.
Content Creation
We’re 98% complete on the content creation:
Villages – Complete!
Towns – Complete!
Castles – Complete!
Keeps – Complete!
Ruins – Complete!
Underworld – Complete!
The remaining items are a few odds ‘n ends like tweaks to boss battles, adding damage to certain tiles (not good to wade through lava), and allowing NPCs to be attacked. Yep, everything’s fair game, but watch out for the guards (and the brute squad)!
Project Status
Core game engine – Complete!
Game box, map, coins, jewel, writ, postcard, artwork, usb – Complete!
Double Hi-Res Splash Screen – Complete!
Mockingboard beta sound driver and music for town/castle/combat/dungeon – Complete!
Quick Combat stretch goal – Complete!
Finish creating content (e.g. maps, NPC schedules and dialog) – 98% complete
Finish writing game manual, do printing – second draft complete
Main game boot menu
Add music to splash screen – In progress
Character creation dialog
Final Beta testing
Bug fixes, combat, and economy balancing
Duplicate floppy disks and usb drives, assemble boxes, ship!
What’s Next
By the next update we’re aiming to have all content complete, be well into fixing all known bugs in preparation for final beta testing, and possibly be started on the main menu and character creation.
COVID-19
We’ve taken time to asses the risk to the Nox Archaist project created by this unfortunate development in the world. Overall, we think the risk is low, but not zero. A significant risk reduction for the project is that most of the physical materials for the boxed sets were ordered and received months ago, so we’re not as exposed to supply chain problems as we might be. The manual is the only major physical item which hasn’t been procured yet, and it is being sourced through a supplier who does printing locally.
One possible disruption might be getting people together to do the disk copying and final assembly. We all live in different parts of the world and travel is of course an unknown at this point. Whatever happens, know that we will do everything we can to navigate through the obstacles as quickly as practical and we will of course provide updates as things unfold.
Other Projects
This Kickstarter for a clear case Apple IIe or IIGS caught our eye – Mark and Chris have already backed it. Imagine that clear case computer running Nox Archaist!
Poll
We’d love to know if you plan on playing Nox Archaist on real hardware or emulator and if real hardware whether you plan to play on floppy disks or a hard drive card (CFFA, BOOTI, etc). Nox Archaist will support all of these platforms. We’re just curious to know what the current state of retro gaming is in this regard.
If you’re up for sharing, please post a comment!
Until next time, stay healthy and safe!
-Mark, Chris and the 6502 Workshop Team