November: Things That Have Happened This Month...

...over the years! Well, back in 1992 id Software finally moved from an apartment to a real office space in Mesquite (the Black Cube). In 1996, I started Ion Storm with Tom Hall and our first office space was in the Quadrangle building near downtown Dallas.

Interestingly, we've never released a game during November even though the pressure is on in a huge way to release as early before Christmas as possible. It always happens that things get finished up to the latest possible point!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Stevie and I did!

EXULT : Ultima 7 - The Black Gate

Finally, someone has developed a native Windows port of Ultima 7, one of the best Ultimas in the series! Ultima 7 was released back in the late spring of 1992 and we were developing Wolfenstein 3D when it hit -- I was extremely impressed with the complete reworking of the interface to maximize visible area (few games back then had done that). The Voodoo Memory Manager wasn't a cool thing, but that's something the port fixes!

You need to have the original version of Ultima 7 installed on your computer before running Exult. You can install Exult in its own directory, then it will ask you where your U7 directory is. Try it out - it has lots of great video settings!

NewWolf

Finally, a Wolfenstein 3D port that works great! It even runs in Wine under Linux. It's a Russian site and it's kinda slow from my place, but it's worth the wait. The site was last updated yesterday, so the very latest version is out right now. It even supports the shareware version, Spear of Destiny, and has some experimental hires texture support in there (you can download textures and new models). What more could you ask for? How about an automap? YEP!

I just played halfway through episode 5 (mine) and it's just as crazy-fast as the original -- and I'm surprised it's still so fun!