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Highly requested first-person RPG classic The Dark Heart of Uukrul joins GOG.COM’s always-growing library of titles today. Originally released in 1989, it's one that holds a special place in many people’s hearts, including Scott Greig (Kill0byt3), who sadly passed away while working on bringing this game back to gamers everywhere.

Scott had a monumental role in re-releasing this game. Sadly, he passed away back in March 2020, while working on making it a reality. According to GOG Stream Team member, Kilg0re, “Scott was a huge fan of the game. He contacted the devs, got them interested, and organized the re-release with the two people responsible for making it, Ian Boswell and Martin Buis.”

His friend, Gregory Wilson (ArvanEleron), also wanted everyone to know how dedicated Scott was to the project: “Canada and Winnipeg area native Scott Greig was a graphic designer and web designer, an aspiring author, streamer, and lover of video games. For a number of years, he was the webmaster and principal graphic designer for GOG's Twitch streamer ArvanEleron, responsible for many of his on stream videos, overlays, and graphics (several of which are still featured every week on Arv's Pen & Pixels show on GOG). Scott was also a mod on a number of channels, and both well-liked and well respected by many online and offline communities.”



So, if you aren’t familiar with this classic game, we’ll catch you up to speed so you can hopefully get a better understanding of why Scott and so many others wanted to see this game brought back from the limbo of history and onto modern PCs everywhere.

The Dark Heart of Uukrul is a first-person turn-based RPG that has you playing as a party of four. You’ll take control of some classic high fantasy characters: a fighter, a paladin, a priest, and a magician.

In Eriosthe, a huge underground city, there are winding tunnels and twisting caverns, monsters that you’ll need to fight, and puzzles that you’ll need to solve. It’s not all doom and gloom though, as safe havens created by the Ancients will give you a place to heal yourself, teleport to other areas, and even level up your team of adventurers.

Need to get some new gear? You’ll need to make your way over the lone marketplace, where traders and cooks are more than happy to make a deal with you. In the case you’ve lost party members along the way, you’ll be able to revive them at the mausoleum, or you can visit the local guild to replace them.

The game is a hidden gem in a sea of RPGs from that era, and what makes it that way is that not only was it not really marketed, but it was released near the end of the Apple II’s lifespan, meaning many gamers missed out on this title.

Thankfully, through Scott and other people’s hard work, The Dark Heart of Uukrul is getting a second life.

Have you heard of The Dark Heart of Uukrul before?
Well, to be accurate, with permadeath I mean that there is only one save slot and you can only save in some safe haven places.
If a mate died you need to find the place where you can resurect it or recruit a different one. It is not exactly the roguelike permadeath system. It is more the old school save system due to technical reasons I bet.
Post edited November 13, 2020 by Gudadantza
I think I remember reading about this game (maybe even a review in some old games mag?), but I never played it.
Maybe it's time to change that - especially after reading the review from GOG user "duerer".
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Green_Hilltop: I actually didn't play Wing Commander back then, as I was looking for a way how to correctly emulate MT-32 and couldn't get it to run properly (and I wanted to get a joystick), is there an easy way how to emulate it now? I'd love to put MT-32 into all my Dosbox games that support it!
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Wolfram_von_Thal: It's very easy to use MT-32 in games in DOSBox!

1. first you need a DOSBox-version that supports MT32. As far as I know the latest official version supports it but I still use Taewoongs SVN build, the latest version is from back in 2015 but it works flawlessly for me in all games and so I never bothered to get another one. Download the zipped (.7z) version (right click and "save target as"), unpack it and just copy the the two files dosbox.exe and the dosbox.conf from that folder into the folder of the game you want to play with MT32 music (the other stuff isn't necessary).
=> http://ykhwong.x-y.net/

2. then you need the two MT32 rom-files (not exactly legal but as in most cases Google is your best friend. The files are called MT32_CONTROL.rom, MT32_PCM.rom). Throw these two files in the same folder.

3. open the dosbox.conf and change "mididevice=default" to "mididevice=mt32"

4. configure the game you want to enjoy to use Roland music.

5. enjoy!
Thank you! So this enables it in already installed GOG (and non-GOG) games that use the Roland compatible Dosbox, right? Would it be possible to skip step one, to avoid the SVN build potentially changing other Dosbox settings? I remember using Taewoongs build in the past, but I think it had the issue that it displayed the visuals a little bit differently - I don't remember how, either it made them darker or perhaps sized differently something like that -there was just something inferior or wrong with the graphics (this was in '14 or '15).
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Wolfram_von_Thal: It's very easy to use MT-32 in games in DOSBox!

1. first you need a DOSBox-version that supports MT32. As far as I know the latest official version supports it but I still use Taewoongs SVN build, the latest version is from back in 2015 but it works flawlessly for me in all games and so I never bothered to get another one. Download the zipped (.7z) version (right click and "save target as"), unpack it and just copy the the two files dosbox.exe and the dosbox.conf from that folder into the folder of the game you want to play with MT32 music (the other stuff isn't necessary).
=> http://ykhwong.x-y.net/

2. then you need the two MT32 rom-files (not exactly legal but as in most cases Google is your best friend. The files are called MT32_CONTROL.rom, MT32_PCM.rom). Throw these two files in the same folder.

3. open the dosbox.conf and change "mididevice=default" to "mididevice=mt32"

4. configure the game you want to enjoy to use Roland music.

5. enjoy!
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Green_Hilltop: Thank you! So this enables it in already installed GOG (and non-GOG) games that use the Roland compatible Dosbox, right? Would it be possible to skip step one, to avoid the SVN build potentially changing other Dosbox settings? I remember using Taewoongs build in the past, but I think it had the issue that it displayed the visuals a little bit differently - I don't remember how, either it made them darker or perhaps sized differently something like that -there was just something inferior or wrong with the graphics (this was in '14 or '15).
No, just no!

The MT-32 support in some unofficial DOSBOX builds is based on Munt. While using one of these does make things a little easier to setup unless the people who are compiling these keep them up to date (which they usually don't) you are stuck with an ancient version of DOSBOX as well as an ancient version of Munt. Which can lead to all kinds of problems if you are unlucky, especially on modern systems.

You really don't want that.

Just download Munt separatly and configure the DOSBOX delivered with the game (or maybe even update that to the latest official version if it isn't already the latest version) to use it as MIDI device, that's the way to go! It's not really that complicated and there are enough tutorials on how to set that up online.

And while you are at it you might also want to get Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth for games that use General Midi/General Synth instead of MT-32.
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BreOl72: I think I remember reading about this game (maybe even a review in some old games mag?), but I never played it.
Maybe it's time to change that - especially after reading the review from GOG user "duerer".
The rather glowing (and justifiably so) one in The CRPG Book, perhaps?

Curious which other one(s) can be ticked off on the 'titles featured/reviewed in The CRPG Book but not on GOG.com yet' list in a couple of hours.
I had this once on my Apple IIc circa 1990 and greatly enjoyed it, so I'm glad to see it back. It's an instant wishlist for me! I got about halfway through the game when I could no longer proceed due to it suddenly needing two disks in drives at the same time, and I only had a single floppy drive. It would have been nice if they had mentioned that two disk drives were required on the packaging. I was able to exchange it for Prince of Persia, which was also fun, but in a different way. It's great that now I have an opportunity to play the game all the way through.
Sad to hear about Scott's passing, but this right here is the most fitting of tributes. Hopefully we all find something like that to dedicate ourselves to.
It's always good to see a release of a good old game on GOG. But this one seems to be too hard for me to enjoy it.
Nice game..let's hope dungeon master 1 and 2 are soon!
The poster of this game look nice. I don't know if I want to play it but I grabbed the poster from the store's page because it look nice, like a bunch of adventurers and monsters taking a vow together to do..... something.

Edit: I just realized that Uukrul sounds like "You cruel" is this an intentional pun?
Post edited November 13, 2020 by RedRagan
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Kelefane: Nice game..let's hope dungeon master 1 and 2 are soon!
Yes, that would be awesome. I watched parts of of this game being played on Matt Barton's YouTube channel.
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Green_Hilltop: Thank you! So this enables it in already installed GOG (and non-GOG) games that use the Roland compatible Dosbox, right? Would it be possible to skip step one, to avoid the SVN build potentially changing other Dosbox settings? I remember using Taewoongs build in the past, but I think it had the issue that it displayed the visuals a little bit differently - I don't remember how, either it made them darker or perhaps sized differently something like that -there was just something inferior or wrong with the graphics (this was in '14 or '15).
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Geralt_of_Rivia: No, just no!

The MT-32 support in some unofficial DOSBOX builds is based on Munt. While using one of these does make things a little easier to setup unless the people who are compiling these keep them up to date (which they usually don't) you are stuck with an ancient version of DOSBOX as well as an ancient version of Munt. Which can lead to all kinds of problems if you are unlucky, especially on modern systems.

You really don't want that.

Just download Munt separatly and configure the DOSBOX delivered with the game (or maybe even update that to the latest official version if it isn't already the latest version) to use it as MIDI device, that's the way to go! It's not really that complicated and there are enough tutorials on how to set that up online.

And while you are at it you might also want to get Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth for games that use General Midi/General Synth instead of MT-32.
I configured dozens of DOS-games years ago with that ancient build and have no issues at all. I now and then tried other DOSBox-versions, but I never heard a difference in quality, so I stayed with this version. Personally I don't like to have to rely on external programs, I like my games portable with everything in the folder so I configure DOSBox accordingly. That's the reason why I don't use MUNT (which is a fine program) anymore.
VirtualMIDISynth is great, yes, I used it some time. But there are other custom DOSBoxes (I think the ECE, but I'm not sure) which allow you to use Midi-soundfonts without the need to install an additional program.
Post edited November 13, 2020 by Wolfram_von_Thal
With Geralt on that one: it is better to manage soundbanks and the MT32 emulation from Virtuamidisynth rather than stick to a branch of Dosbox that slowly will show signs of less and less support. I always have a Dosbox-X, and ECE and the svn daum just in case, switching from one to the other depending on what I need - I really love the ECE support for pixel perfect (or at least a good approximation of it) and the better sounding Nuked OPL3. Among other things.

About the release: nice surprise. CRPGs around 1990s are tricky to get into but then extremely addictive once you know what to do. Insert necessary mention to crpgaddict here.

EDIT: actually, what I really HATE about the default installation of Dosbox in GOG is how the image is always stretched and the output is a really awful looking pixel mess.
Post edited November 13, 2020 by Risingson
I hadn't heard of this game before but it sounds and looks amazing! RIP Scott, it seems like this game was such a passion project and it's amazing to see it's getting a second life for a new generation (as well as the generation who had played it during its original lifespan, of course) of gamers. Can't wait to play it!
high rated
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RPGFanboy: Very cool memorial to Scott. I'm glad it is released.
Agreed. This is not just an amazing release (which showcases how these oldies are sometimes too harsh to handle on both gog, devs and so many people involved) only... it is one of the most important gog releases ever in my opinion. Someone truly kindhearted made this possible. Like delivering something unique into the world... sadly, and how I mean it, in light of absolutely unfortunate events, he passed away (too soon from what I've heard) and couldn't see the day .

No matter what your faith is or if you believe in something above there or not but I suppose he's truly happy for us who can enjoy his dream come true. We should celebrate this release in his honour.

Cheers to y'all