Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Aborakon & Richard Garriott

Richard Garriott, also known as Lord British, is most famous for his computer role playing series Ultima (besides travelling in space). Beginning with Akalabeth in 1980 and reaching its peak in 1997 with Ultima Online, the Ultima series influenced the RPG genre for decades.


When playing Aborakon: Fragment Green, it's obvious that the Ultima series was an example for parts of the gameplay, especially the controls and the interaction with items. In particular Ultima VII: The Black Gate was the biggest inspiration for Aborakon. By the way, this Ultima part was the first computer game I ever played (1992) and it had an enormous impact on me for sure.

Unsurprising it was a real pleasure for me to meet Richard Garriott in person the other day. I had the chance to talk with him more than an hour about his past, his current projects and about Aborakon. I showed him the game, he said that he likes the item interaction, so that you can move single wood logs below the oven ;-)