The Revenge of the Enchantress

Ultima was an unqualified success, and Garriott wasted little time producing the sequel. However, Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress (Aug. 1982), was published by Sierra On-Line rather than California Pacific, which had somehow managed to bankrupt in the interval.

Garriott, always a stickler for how his games were packaged, chose Sierra because the company was more responsive to his idea to include a cloth map with the game (apparently, this decision was influenced by Garriott's obsession with Terry Gilliam's 1981 film Time Bandits, which features a similar contrivance). The second game offers several improvements, such as the ability to talk to nonplayer characters and some routines written in assembly language that increased the game's speed. It also doubled the number of tiles used for the graphics, a noticeable and desirable improvement.

Like the first Ultima, The Revenge of the Enchantress is another mix of fantasy and sci-fi elements. This time, it's not Mondain but rather his apprentice and lover, Minax, who aims to eradicate the human race by instigating a nuclear war. Again the player has to track down a magical item needed to destroy her, a quest that involves traveling to several villages, time periods, and even planets.

It's an enormous game whose impressive scope is comparable only to Sierra's other big game of 1982, Time Zone, a sprawling $100 graphical adventure game by Roberta Williams. However, Ultima II contained several bugs, and some critics complained that the game had a rushed, unpolished feel. Nevertheless, the game sold even better than the previous one.

The second Ultima game was as ambitious as the first, though Garriott's relationship with Sierra eroded quickly.

When it was time for Ultima III, Garriott decided to break from Sierra and publish the game under his own new company, Origin -- primarily a family company consisting of his brother and their two parents. Garriott did not leave Sierra on good terms, however. According to a 1986 interview published in Computer Gaming World, he felt that Sierra "did not seem very author friendly," and that "I never really knew if I was getting a fair shake."

What exactly did Garriott have in mind when he made these comments? Some sources claim that the comments refer to an argument about the royalties for the IBM PC port of Ultima II. When Garriott had signed his contract with Sierra, the IBM PC didn't exist, and was not factored into the royalty agreement.

According to Garriott, Sierra offered him a "take it or leave it" arrangement with lower royalties than he felt he deserved. This is the explanation offered by Shay Addams in his The Official Book of Ultima and suggested by Wikipedia.

However, the problem may have something to do with an exceptionally rare game called Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash, published in 1983 exclusively for the Commodore VIC-20. The game was programmed by Keith Zabalaoui and released without Garriott's knowledge or permission (and most likely against his wishes). Ever the perfectionist, Garriott was likely upset with the Mt. Drash fiasco, seeing it as the worst sort of exploitation.

In any case, Escape from Mt. Drash was a poor seller and is so ultra rare today that it has become a Holy Grail for many collectors of vintage software. In 2003, the loose data cassette alone fetched $865 in an online auction.

The game itself is a rather simplistic dungeon crawl, though one featuring a three-sectioned interface and 3D dungeons. A review in the July/August of Computer Gaming World praises its "unique graphics and marvelous musical score," but its collectability undoubtedly owes more to controversy than quality. Addams doesn't even mention it in his Official book.