Today I want to review the roguelike computer rpg Ularn. First we will take a quick look at the history of roguelikes. In 1980 the game Rogue was created for the Unix operating system by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman. It was a dungeon crawler which allowed you to kill monsters in a fantasy setting much like Dungeons and Dragons. Rogue created the roguelike genre. Other popular games that have spawned from it include the game Hack, NetHack, Larn, and Ularn.
Ularn, or Ultra Larn, is a extended version of larn, and it was made by Phil Cordier. Today it has had many updates including graphical tiles instead of ASCII text. It is also Open Source which means anybody can edit and redistribute the code. Ularn starts off when the user enters his or her name and picks a class. Classes included Wizards, Adventurers, Dwarves, Rogues, Elves, and many others. You can cast spells, drink potions, buy scrolls with different effects, and enter a 15 level dungeon and a 5 level Volcanoe. There are also many different weapons and armors in the game as well as countless unique monsters from all elements of fantasy.
After you choose your name and class, you set off into the dungeon. You will encounter many monsters with different effects. Some will confuse you, others will damage your armor and weapons, and some are even invisible. Ularn also has a story in which the main character is trying to find a rare potion that can cure his daughters fatal sickness. The potion is found in the bottom of the Volcanoe. The Volcanoe is by no means a lovely place and it will take skill, gameplay time, and guts to get to the bottom. There is another catch to the game as well. You do have to beat the game in a ceratin amount of time, which is measure in mobuls. The dungeons are randomly created each time making replay value extremely high, and once you die you are dead for good and must make a new character.
After playing Ularn for a month now I must say for a simple game with simple graphics it is impressive and addicting. Me and my friends are always trying to get a high score, or even beat the game. If you have spare time on your computer, or are one of those people that likes addictive simple games then Ularn is the game for you. In my honest opinion I give Ularn a 8/10. Download it and play it today at this link.
http://rogue-life.ourden.org/files/ularn/ularn_1_6_3a.zip
