Antepenult

Antepenult is an obscure Ultima clone, created for the Amiga in the 1980s by Paul Falstad, and distributed as shareware. This summer, I learned about it by stumbling onto the CRPG Addict blog; the writer Chester Bolingbroke is playing his way through old computer games in the role-playing-game genre. He’s an excellent and engaging writer, and my quick skim of his first two articles convinced me that I should give it a try. I did not read these closely so I would avoid detailed spoilers. After all, the fun part is solving the puzzles for yourself!

 

Unlike Nox Archaist, which pays homage to the Ultima series, but is much more streamlined with modern design sensibilities, Antepenult is indeed a child of the 1980s. And it really is an Ultima clone – down to most of the graphics and much of the gameplay. I’d classify it as a mishmash of Ultima II, III, and IV. You’re a single player; there is no party. You consume food. There are basic weapons, armor, and supplies (torches, keys, gems). You can obtain other special items, some of which provide the equivalent of magic. You get gold by fighting the same denizens you’d see in Ultima. It feels very familiar. You begin near a castle and a town; and the ruler of the castle sets you on your quest. Basically, you need to conquer evil and save the world. Nothing new there.

 

You begin in the land of Havilah. If you’ve read the bible, some of the non-player characters (NPCs) have biblical names, some are the early church fathers, and then there’s a whole bunch of Greek mythology thrown in. I met Homer and Asaph in the same hallway of a city. They were composing songs and poems about the evil that had come and my eventual victorious quest. To complete said quest, I needed to explore different towns and worlds and talk to NPCs. I was given a list of items to collect, and many of the NPCs strung me along by telling me the next person to talk to. The four elements of Earth, Water, Air, Fire, feature prominently. I had to discover how to access these different worlds. And if you guessed it, the waterworld is called Atlantis and its king is Neptune. Two towns in that world were Tyre and Sidon. Yes, it’s a mishmash. And the special items you collect are Ultima-cloney. I won’t say much in case you ever want to try the game yourself.

 

I’d never used an Amiga before but I was able to eventually get FS-UAE working several moons ago. So as not to interfere with my workweek, I only played Antepenult for some number of hours each weekend. I took copious notes and I started to make maps. When I really got stuck, I would skim the CRPG Addict’s articles and get a clue as to how to proceed. This didn’t happen very often and it has been interesting to compare Bolingbroke’s play-through with my own. We used similar strategies overall, and occasionally got stuck in the same spaces. But any seasoned old-school Ultima player would probably do the same things. Some patience is needed. A teenager today would probably find it b-o-r-i-n-g. But someone who played Ultima as a teenager will feel the nostalgia when discovering some clever and amusing parts in the game.

 

Here I am at the final castle of the big bad boss.

 

After defeating him, instead of getting a “Congratulations! You won!” message, I got confused as fire and black spots suddenly started appearing and I wasn’t sure what to do and whether I needed to run out of the castle. Everything goes black.

 

I wake up in a restored castle Pergamum and as I walked through the hallways I am thanked by its many inhabitants for saving the world. Asaph was one of them. As were a number of the church father namesakes who gave me clues for my quest. One character who I saved from a high school in hell sets up a possible sequel. (I thought I killed the hag, but apparently she got away. I must have just killed the daemon inhabiting a body that claimed her name.)

 

The king of Havilah, Lord Hypnos, tells me how to return to my own world. Very Ultima. When I enter the portal to do so, there’s an amusing sequence at the very end. Another hint of a possible sequel. No sequel ever came. According to Bolingbroke, this was Falstad’s only game and he programmed it when he was young, and before adulting became a fulltime job.

 

I’ve now read in detail all Bolingbroke’s Antepenult articles. If you’d like to just get a sense of the nostalgia by living vicariously through his playthrough, you won’t be disappointed by his articles. If you want the full experience, get an Amiga emulator and give it a go. My copy was unregistered which makes the game harder when you’re in Tartarus, but not insurmountable. In his articles, Bolingbroke provides enough information whenever you’re stuck. My overall rating of Antepenult? It’s not as good as Nox Archaist, but it has some very clever bits. When I finish my adulting phase-of-life, maybe I will take up writing a retro-game themed on the four elements. I have imagined some of my own clever bits. Maybe my game will be the Antepenult sequel.