Posted July 11, 2023
Hello, Akalabeth fans!
Not sure if this was ever resolved, but the original DOS version of Akalabeth included with the Ultima series on GOG has a bug in it, a bug that existed before GOG was offering the game for download, in which Lord British will try to give you a quest to kill a monster, but doesn't actually give you a monster to kill, and the game code gets stuck in a loop where you basically can't get a quest assigned in order to progress through the game. Akalabeth becomes unwinnable.
If you play the 1998 remaster, they seem to have fixed the bug, but I enjoy the additional randomization elements in the original game that are not reproduced in the 1998 remaster.
There used to be an auto-patch made by a fan years back that would fix the .exe, but it seems to be lost to the dusty annals of the Internet. So I installed QB 4.5 for DOS and dove into the code myself, found and fixed the problem, and compiled a new .exe.
It can be downloaded here:
dropbox.com/s/omslrmhgvs1wygs/AKLABETH.EXE?dl=0
Simply drop the .exe into your game folder, and overwrite the original .exe when prompted. Now you can successfully play the game to completion (if you have the wherewithal!!). I haven't been able to offer much help to the gaming community over the years, in terms of fixes for problems with old games... I've taken a lot more than I've given, but I do love this little dungeon crawler and figured I'd make the fix available to any who might be googling for a solution, down the road.
Happy adventuring!!!!
-Tom
Not sure if this was ever resolved, but the original DOS version of Akalabeth included with the Ultima series on GOG has a bug in it, a bug that existed before GOG was offering the game for download, in which Lord British will try to give you a quest to kill a monster, but doesn't actually give you a monster to kill, and the game code gets stuck in a loop where you basically can't get a quest assigned in order to progress through the game. Akalabeth becomes unwinnable.
If you play the 1998 remaster, they seem to have fixed the bug, but I enjoy the additional randomization elements in the original game that are not reproduced in the 1998 remaster.
There used to be an auto-patch made by a fan years back that would fix the .exe, but it seems to be lost to the dusty annals of the Internet. So I installed QB 4.5 for DOS and dove into the code myself, found and fixed the problem, and compiled a new .exe.
It can be downloaded here:
dropbox.com/s/omslrmhgvs1wygs/AKLABETH.EXE?dl=0
Simply drop the .exe into your game folder, and overwrite the original .exe when prompted. Now you can successfully play the game to completion (if you have the wherewithal!!). I haven't been able to offer much help to the gaming community over the years, in terms of fixes for problems with old games... I've taken a lot more than I've given, but I do love this little dungeon crawler and figured I'd make the fix available to any who might be googling for a solution, down the road.
Happy adventuring!!!!
-Tom
