0.7.0 - Interface presets

The modern scheme can now look like the original: two new interface presets built from the original's own pieces, and the classic scheme widened to wide screens.

Interface presets (game menu, under Edit layout)

• Classic Wide - the original's frame widened to the screen. The added stone is grown anew at fixed places instead of stretched; the dragons, the panel with the chain, the rune tablet, the compass, the flasks and the fight icon work as in the original.
• Classic Modular - the original's pieces as parts of their own over the whole view: the rune tablet, the character page with the original inventory, the stats panel, the message scroll on a stone shelf, the compass on its disc, the power gem, the prepared runes and the flasks.
• Modern and Customize as before.

Layout editor

• Preset takes Modern or Classic Modular as the starting point of your own layout. The layout is saved only when you leave the editor and confirm the save, so you can always go back to the layout you had.
• The original's pieces can be switched on one by one. The action bar can be switched off. A stone shelf can be added as decoration and widened with the mouse.
• Every part can wear a background in the original's colours and patterns.
• The original's pictures keep the pixel proportion of the 4:3 screen they were drawn for.

Classic scheme

• Always at the original's 4:3. Classic screen widescreen in the Graphics menu widens the frame to the screen the same way; conversations and the map stay at 4:3.
• View sets the view angle of the 3D view, for every scheme.
• Palette mode: outside the original's own view cone, sprites now go by real depth, so nothing shows through a side wall in a wide view.

Faithfulness fixes

• When a skill rises, the combat skills now also get the chance of an extra point, as in UW.EXE.
• The magic group mantra favours Mana while it is below 8.
• A group mantra that raised nothing says "None of your skills improved." and still spends the point.

Smaller things

• Diagonal and free directions take the original's side and back speeds, so a gamepad stick no longer strafes or backs off at running speed.
• The men's plate leggings are drawn two rows lower, where the other leg armour sits. This is a deliberate deviation from the original.

0.6.0 - Music

The music can now play its MT-32 version instead of the AdLib one - chosen under Sound in the menu bar (“Music played by”):

General MIDI works out of the box: a soundfont comes with the game (cut from FluidR3 GM, MIT), and the MT-32’s instruments are matched to General MIDI by name. Close to the MT-32, not identical.
MT-32: the Roland MT-32 itself, emulated by Munt. It needs the control and PCM ROM of a real MT-32 or CM-32L, which belong to Roland and are not included - put your own into the folder the Open folder button opens; the menu shows which ROMs were recognised.
The AdLib stays the default; the sound effects stay on the AdLib in every mode.

Also in this release

No stray level theme and no footsteps before the main menu at startup.
The control scheme can also be switched under Game in the menu bar - for keyboards whose F keys need Fn.
Linux, now tested on real hardware (Kubuntu 26.04): the menus use a font with Arial’s metrics (Liberation Sans) so texts fit their buttons, no pointer over the logos, the gamepad’s pointer is visible under Wayland/XWayland, and no crash on quitting.
The README is shorter; the full controls, building and the screenshot gallery moved to Docs.

Downloads: UnderworldRevisited-0.6.0-win64.zip for Windows, UnderworldRevisited-0.6.0-linux64.tar.gz for Linux. The packages grew by about 22 MB for the soundfont. As always you need Ultima Underworld from GOG.com.

0.5.0 - Gamepad

A gamepad now works in both control schemes (tested with an Xbox controller on Windows and on Linux).

Modern scheme: the sticks walk and look, A uses (held: directly), X looks, Y jumps, B goes back, RT draws and strikes, LT casts (held: rune panel), LB/RB and d-pad up for the action bar, d-pad down for the character panel (held: every bag), View for the map (held: the help).
A pointer on the right stick (R3) reaches every window: the menus, the bags, the conversations, the classic frame. A and RT are the left mouse button, X and LT the right one.
Menus, context menus, character creation and conversation answers step on the d-pad and the left stick. A letter grid types names, save games and mantras.
Button glyphs (Kenney's Input Prompts Pixel) in the help, at the crosshair, the action bar and in a hint strip, as Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo buttons, chosen in the Controls dialog.
Gamepad tab in the Controls dialog: every button rebindable, swapped sticks for left-handed players, inverted look, a deadzone per stick against drift.
Classic scheme: the left stick walks, the right one turns and tilts, the pad's buttons are the mouse buttons.
Fixes: fountains now cast their own enchantment as in the original, so not every fountain heals, and not always fully. The silver tree's seed goes into the bags in the modern scheme.

On Linux the gamepad's pointer clicks in an X11 session (not under native Wayland).

0.4.0 - Palette effects

Palette effects

• New effects of the port's own for Palette mode, the original's look. Every pixel stays a
  colour of the original's palette, because they only move the original's shade steps:
  • Ambient occlusion
  • Grime where walls and steps meet the floor, in a dirt, moss or soot colour
  • Wall depth (parallax), with its shadow
  • Darker joints
  • Ground shadows under creatures and things
  • Glow: lava and flames keep their full colour in the dark
  • Light sources: torches, candles, fires, lava, glowing stones, mushrooms and orbs light
    their surroundings by the original's own light table, with walls casting shadows
• All off by default. Graphics menu > "Palette effects..." has the presets Subtle and Full,
  and every effect on its own. Use them with care: turned up, they quickly take away the
  look of the original.

Remastered mode

• The grime works here too.
• The effects panel ("Very high - own effects...") scrolls, can be moved by its title row,
  and now opens from the menu bar in the game, in both control schemes.
• Wall depth no longer snaps to whole texels; the shift is smooth.
• A calmer ambient occlusion (a fixed noise pattern instead of one changing every frame).

Faithfulness

• Pillars repeat their texture as in the original instead of stretching it from floor to
  ceiling.

Save games stay compatible with the original's.

Downloads: Windows (64-bit) and Linux (x86-64). You need your own copy of Ultima Underworld,
see the README.

0.3.3 - Original resolution

The world at the original's resolution

• A new switch in the Graphics menu draws the 3D view with one pixel row per row of the
  original's 320x200 screen and scales it up with hard pixel edges. The interface stays sharp.
• In the classic frame that is the original's own grid. Full screen in the modern scheme it is
  200 rows, with the width following your screen's aspect ratio.
• A slider below it sets a multiple: 1x, 2x, 3x, or 4x on windows at least 1600 pixels tall.
• It works in Palette mode, with the original's colours, light and dithering, and in Remastered
  mode, ambient occlusion and torch light included.

Modern scheme

• With the pointer free over the bags, the character panel or the action bar, Q and E act on
  the thing under the pointer, as they do in the world: Q looks at it, E opens a bag, puts on
  what is worn or uses it. Holding E does nothing over a window.

Save games stay compatible with the original's.

Downloads: Windows (64-bit) and Linux (x86-64). You need your own copy of Ultima Underworld,
see the README.

0.3.2 - Faithfulness fixes

More of the original's behaviour, read out of UW.EXE and confirmed against the original in DOSBox.

Movement and controls

• The easy-move arrows run the original's own step code: the same steps, the same checks for
  what fits on a tile, and the triggers they set off.
• The original's mouse-pointer steering uses the original's values: turning and walking speed by
  pointer position, and the commands of the bottom row.

Creatures

• Creatures show the picture the original picks for the angle you see them from, and keep their
  walking picture through the last step of a walk.

Traps and triggers

• Move triggers fire as often as in the original, also while you stand on them.
• Creatures and thrown things set triggers off too, as in the original: a thrown item can drop a
  portcullis or bring up a trap's message.
• A damage trap destroys a worn-out thrown item; the debris flies on with the same momentum.
• Teleport traps move only the player.
• A door trap leaves a moving door alone and replaces its lock instead of toggling it (the
  portcullis near Drog no longer goes down and up again while you walk).

Graphics and map

• Palette mode: things behind a wall no longer flash through it at the edge of the view.
• The map no longer draws the water hole on level 1 as a stair.

Save games stay compatible with the original's.

Downloads: Windows (64-bit) and Linux (x86-64). You need your own copy of Ultima Underworld,
see the README.

0.3.1 - Linux manual

The manual on Linux. The help window's manual tab and its reading mode now work on Linux as well: the Linux package carries its own PDFium library (the same release as the Windows one). The manual's PDF is found whatever the case of its file name.

Licence texts in the packages. Both packages now include the ThirdParty folder with the full licence texts that THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md refers to (PDFium and its components, the Lexend font's OFL). They were missing from the downloads up to 0.3.0.

README. Installation now starts with the release downloads; building from source is the second way.

Windows: UnderworldRevisited-0.3.1-win64.zip. Linux: UnderworldRevisited-0.3.1-linux64.tar.gz (run chmod +x UR.x86_64 if the executable bit was lost). Both need the GOG release of Ultima Underworld 1; the packages contain no game data.

0.3.0 - Original motion, Linux

The motion of the player now runs on the original's own motion code, and there is a Linux build.

Motion on the original's code. The player, the creatures and everything thrown or shot move by the motion routines read out of UW.EXE, without Unity physics: slopes, ledges, the water edge, the deflection off walls, jumping, swimming, levitation, slow fall, falling damage and lava behave as in the original. Walking you no longer drop off ledges, running you do; a jump into a slope throws you back; a portcullis opened by a conversation can be walked through, a closed one cannot.

The Motion dialog. A new entry in the menu bar, with a plain explanation beside every setting. Original runs the arithmetic step by step as the game did in 1992; Original fps sets how many steps a second, where more steps make the slow motions slower, exactly as the original did under DOSBox at unlimited cycles (that is also why swimming barely moved there). Smooth computes the same rules once per rendered frame for an even picture, with the response of the start and stop of a walk adjustable. Settings without effect in the chosen mode are greyed out.

Mouse look speed. The modern scheme's mouse look can be slowed down to 5 percent, under Controls in the menu bar.

The menu bar in the game. The settings of the menu bar are reachable from the game menu in both schemes; the modern game menu lost its duplicate music, sound and detail buttons and has Quit at the bottom. In the classic scheme the pointer stays a cross while a menu is open.

Linux. A build for 64-bit Linux (UR.x86_64, tar.gz), tested in a Kubuntu VM: the game data is read regardless of the case of the file names, the game folder dialog shows the root, the home folder and the mounted disks, text can be typed where the Linux keyboard sends no text events, and the opening does not play again after the character creation. The manual tab of the help window is not available on Linux yet. In a virtual machine, switch off the mouse integration for the modern scheme's mouse look.

Fixes. A dragged item stays on the pointer while turning; a portcullis opened by a conversation lets the player through; the water line follows the feet on a slope; the help no longer opens on Tab while the game folder dialog is up.

Windows: UnderworldRevisited-0.3.0-win64.zip. Linux: UnderworldRevisited-0.3.0-linux64.tar.gz (run chmod +x UR.x86_64 if the executable bit was lost). Both need the GOG release of Ultima Underworld 1; the package contains no game data.

0.2.1 - Message colours

A small update to 0.2.0.

Fixed

• Modern scheme: the message box showed the game's colour codes as text
  ("\6Save Game Succeeded.\0"). They now show as colours, as in the classic
  message box - green for a successful save, red for a failed one.

Under the hood

• The modern interface's layout rules, its frame pictures and the placement
  of the bags moved into the engine-free data layer. Nothing changes in the
  game; the new code was checked against the previous one without a single
  difference.

Requirements as before: Windows 10 or newer (64 bit, DirectX 11) and
Ultima Underworld 1 from GOG.com. Unpack the zip and start UR.exe.

0.2.0 - Modern controls

The modern control scheme is now complete and playable. Shift+F2 switches between it and the original 1992 controls at any time; the scheme in force is kept.

The modern scheme

• Free mouse look with a crosshair, WASD, E to use, Q to look, R to draw the weapon; the right mouse button frees the pointer for the windows
• An action bar for things and spells, bags with context menus and stack splitting
• A character panel and a rune panel that slide out from the screen's edges, a minimap, the big map
• The active spells, and a heading strip where the gargoyle's eyes light up with the foe's name after a hit
• A conversation screen of its own, with trading by dragging from the bags and its own text size
• Question boxes for repairs and mantras while the world stands still

Edit layout (game menu): move and size every part of the modern interface, set the UI size, switch the minimap off.

Also

• A Controls tab in the help, listing the keys of the scheme in force as you have bound them
• Typed answers in conversations no longer show the original's reprint codes
• New screenshots in the README

The rules stay the original's throughout - only the way to them is new.

Requires Windows 10 or newer (64-bit), DirectX 11, and Ultima Underworld 1 from GOG.com. No game data is included.