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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?
Never heard about it, but it's nice that it's now made thanks to passion of some !
So thanks for achieving the re-release of this game.

I will definitely buy it one day to discover it :)
What a great classic rerelease!

This is the niche and the underdog of the old dungeon crawlers. A game that was pretty obscure at the time and a cult classic since then.

It is so special that it was hardcore but surpringsinly easy to use even today, simple controls and automap. The old art direction aged pretty well, simplistic and colourful.

But it is really well known for the great and imaginative dungeon layout and the most clever puzzles and metapuzzles in a CRPG/Dungeon Crawler ever.

It has dangerous and debatable design features though, like a too draconian food system, a permadeath save system. And a magic system which needs the manual to be useable.
Post edited November 12, 2020 by Gudadantza
high rated
Instabought! Thanks for bringing this to GOG, and RIP Scott.
Is it similar to Rogue?
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IronArcturus: Is it similar to Rogue?
It's not a rogue-like.
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IronArcturus: Is it similar to Rogue?
It is similar to gold box games, bard's tale or wizardry
I was 17 when this came out but seems I missed out on this one...thanks for the 2nd chance GOG!
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Galaduir: Yes, the manual is 60M and the amulets images are 17M.

As for the release itself it's always funny to read GOG promo posts about the old DOS games that they "brought back to life" so tirelessly and heroically... Guys, DOS games are alive more than you can imagine, they run on any system configuration and they don't need your heroic re-releases to be playable today.
Thanks! Well, if someone wants to buy the game legally, this allows them to have the game in their collection, and some games need to alter the speed etc. (which not everyone knows how to do), so in some cases their installer packages might benefits certain users.
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Galaduir: Yes, the manual is 60M and the amulets images are 17M.

As for the release itself it's always funny to read GOG promo posts about the old DOS games that they "brought back to life" so tirelessly and heroically... Guys, DOS games are alive more than you can imagine, they run on any system configuration and they don't need your heroic re-releases to be playable today.
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Green_Hilltop: Thanks! Well, if someone wants to buy the game legally, this allows them to have the game in their collection, and some games need to alter the speed etc. (which not everyone knows how to do), so in some cases their installer packages might benefits certain users.
Indeed, the installers are a good chance for everybody to experience the classics without the hassle to learn how to configure DOSBox. However after I learned to use custom DOSBoxes I have to admit that I tend to tinker with almost every release from GOG because many are not ideally configured. And I really wish they'd try to get that license to use Roland MT-32 emulation instead of the standard SB Pro stuff. It's makes such a big difference for example for games like Wing Commander or the later Ultimas.
Post edited November 12, 2020 by Wolfram_von_Thal
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Green_Hilltop: Why does the game have 88MB size when the game itself is only 1MB (and DOsbox 20). Is the included manual and copy protection?
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Galaduir: Yes, the manual is 60M and the amulets images are 17M.

As for the release itself it's always funny to read GOG promo posts about the old DOS games that they "brought back to life" so tirelessly and heroically... Guys, DOS games are alive more than you can imagine, they run on any system configuration and they don't need your heroic re-releases to be playable today.
They havent been officially re-released in digital format
so unless you get out of your way to get ahold of the physical version
the Gog post is completly correct.

Pirate sites and abbondonware games sites doesnt count.
high rated
RIP Scott, well done on your hard work getting this game re-released.
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Green_Hilltop: Thanks! Well, if someone wants to buy the game legally, this allows them to have the game in their collection, and some games need to alter the speed etc. (which not everyone knows how to do), so in some cases their installer packages might benefits certain users.
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Wolfram_von_Thal: Indeed, the installers are a good chance for everybody to experience the classics without the hassle to learn how to configure DOSBox. However after I learned to use custom DOSBoxes I have to admit that I tend to tinker with almost every release from GOG because many are not ideally configured. And I really wish they'd try to get that license to use Roland MT-32 emulation instead of the standard SB Pro stuff. It's makes such a big difference for example for games like Wing Commander or the later Ultimas.
Indeed, I usually use Dosbox when I can, since you also save on not have multiple installations - having 10 games can add up to 200MB just for the Dosbox files themselves.

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!
We had this on the Apple back in the day.

I absolutely loved it, but I got very frustrated at some point and never quite managed to finish it.

It's fantastic to see that this has been dusted down and made available in a straightforward way, and I hope it makes more sales on GOG than it did the first time round!
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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!
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!
Post edited November 12, 2020 by Wolfram_von_Thal
I was super excited to discover this game I'd never heard of, that sounds right up my alley, until I read "draconian food system" and "perma-death".

Might be a bit too frustrating for me. I'm too damn old to deal with that shit anymore!