Introduction

Ultimate Odyssey is an adventure exploration game where you take on the role of a destined hero to rid the lands of a darkness falling over it. Creatures are getting vicious and attacking people. Pirates have taken over the waters. And there are even reports of the dead rising from their graves. Can you find the source of the deadly incursion and put a stop to it?


How to play

There are three main modes of play: interacting, traveling, and fighting.

Interacting

When you interact with people, or have choices to make, you'll be presented with a dialogue box with options. Use the arrow keys to highlight and select the option you want and press the Z or X button to confirm.

Traveling

While being shown the map of the world, you can travel around it using the arrow keys. You can use the z key to switch between holding your sword and your bow, depending on how you want to be prepared for any fights that come along. You can use the x key to see your hero's current status.

Fighting

Sometimes, you will be attacked and need to defend yourself! Combat is turn-based in this game. When it's your turn, you can move using the arrow keys. Running into an enemy will cause you to attack them.

As while traveling, you can use the z key to switch weapons, but watch out – switching weapons takes time, and gives the enemy a chance to take a turn!

You can also use the x key to bring up a list of special moves:

  • Attack with a bow. Allows you to attack an enemy at range. When you select this, a targeting reticle will appear. Use the arrow keys to move it to the target you want to fire an arrow at and press x to fire or z to cancel. Only available if you are currently wielding your bow and you have at least one arrow. Some terrain blocks your ability to attack enemies; when you have a valid target, the reticle turns green.
  • Precise attack. Raises the chance to hit on your next attack. Useful when you're having a hard time hitting the enemy. It costs one stamina, though, and gives the enemy a turn.
  • Power attack. Raises the damage you do on your next attack. Useful when you're not doing much damage. It costs one stamina, and gives the enemy a turn.
  • Fight defensively. Raises your defense the next time you are attacked, making it harder to hit you. It also allows you to regain some stamina, but it gives the enemy a turn.
  • Swap weapon. Same as pressing z, this lets you swap between your bow and your sword.

Your Hero

Your hero has several measures that you can improve by getting training or improving equipment.

  • Health (Represented by a heart.) Your current health. If you ever run out, you die. Try to not let that happen.
  • Stamina (Represented by a star.) Your current stamina. If you run out, you cannot use special maneuvers.
  • Level Determines your health point and stamina maxima.
  • Strength Helps when attacking, with both chance to hit and to damage the opponent, but only with melee attacks.
  • Dexterity Helps when attacking with a bow, both chance to hit and to damage, dodging attacks, and escaping.
  • Sword Helps with melee attacks.
  • Bow Helps with ranged attacks.
  • Armor Helps reduce damage when you get hit.
  • Shield Helps reduce chance of getting hit.

Search the land for trainers, advisors, and craftspeople to help you improve these stats – you'll need higher stats to win the game!

Dying, Saving, and Loading

The game saves whenever you change locations from one map to another. To restart from a saved game, you can reload the cart and select "Load Game" from the menu. To start a new game, reload the cart and select "New Game".

If your character dies, you'll be given the option to have the royal court "resurrect" your hero. This will pull you back to the castle and restore you to full health. You do not lose any game progress, xp, gold, etc., but you might have to travel back to the location where you were adventuring to continue your adventure. (Luckily, there are ways to move around quickly which you will find as you adventure.)

Supporting the Game

I'm not accepting donations on Ultimate Odyssey. But if you'd still like to send some goodwill my way, consider picking up some of my other games, such as Welcome Aboard, Captain, Dungeon Hero, Expedition to Skull Island, or Fable on Your Table. All of these games share a focus on adventure and exploration, and are likely of interest to players who enjoy this game. Or, simply spread the word and help me drum up interest in these games. Every little bit helps!


Version History

v1.1 - Initial release

v1.2 - Software update to hopefully address some "out of memory" errors and to fix a bug that prevented you from leaving an oasis.

v1.3 - Fixes a bug that would hang when resurrecting before entering a town or the castle or other area. Also makes it so that when you get healed, it heals your stamina.

v1.4 - Fixes a bug in the gate connections.

v1.5 - Fixes a bug regarding accessing the end game area.

StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
Rating
Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars
(4 total ratings)
AuthorLone Spelunker
GenreAdventure, Role Playing
Made withPICO-8
TagsPICO-8, Pixel Art, Retro, Turn-based, Turn-Based Combat

Development log

Comments

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(+1)

Wow, this is so cool! Such a great RPG for the Pico 8! Awesome work as usual!

Glad you liked it!

(1 edit)

Beat it! Fun game, if a little slow in the later combats.  Never found the bow upgrade guy, if there is one.  I thought there would be a secret for sailing across the cave in the frozen north but there wasn't. I also got a bug when returning after getting the orb of the east where it immediately teleported me to that orb's destination and I couldn't re-enter the grove afterwards.  I had just spent all my money on sword upgrades so when I found out that I needed 1k for the ship to progress I thought I would be stuck fighting goblins for ages.  Luckily it fixed it self when I reloaded the game. ( I see in the comments below that someone else had the same problem and you fixed it.  Thanks for not breaking saves!)

There's also a bug where the ghost castle is entirely optional-- the Skull Gate tile is walkable so it doesn't impede progress.

Glad you enjoyed the game!

I just uploaded a fix for the sail-through skull – thanks for bringing that to my attention!

How do I purchase arrows from the fletcher?  the UI offers "0 units for 0" with left-right arrows, but the left and right keys do not change the offer.

You use the left and right arrow keys to increase the amount you are going to buy.  If you can't go above zero, it's probably because either you have no gold to pay for them OR you are already at your maximum carrying capacity for arrows (24).

(Let me know if neither is the case and you're still unable to change the number of arrows in the UI, because then that would be a bug!)

(1 edit) (+1)

Got it.  It's because I can't see the "ARR" stat unless I'm wielding a bow when I talk to the fletcher.

(1 edit) (+1)

Why is the passage east one-way instead of two-way?  The other passages were two-way, it's taking a long time to farm 1000 coins from just goblins, and it'd take even longer for my armored/shielded/leveled/dextrous character to die and resurrect.

Not sure what you mean by “the passage east,” but I don’t recall putting any one-way passages in the game so it sounds like a bug. If you could clarify which passage you are referring to, I’ll take a look and try to get a new version out.

Thanks!  I mean the passage using the east orb, when I go that way and try to go back it won't take me back to the little grove with the three passages opened by the north/south/east orbs.  So I'm stuck in the eastern area because I can't afford a galleon yet and I can't go back.

(+1)

Got it.  There indeed was a bug in the gate connections.  I've updated the app with a fix – try it now!

And thanks for bringing this to my attention!  I appreciate you taking the time to tell me about it.

(+1)

Thanks, it's working now!

A fun diversion that had the feel of an old computer game.  Played on and off on breaks and was able to finish it.  Never did figure out how to improve my bow or dexterity, so I'm thinking I missed a step somewhere.  Thanks!

(+1)

Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for taking the time to say so.

The bow and dexterity trainers are a little hidden; poke around the towns a bit and see if you can find them!

(+1)

Great so far. Brings me back to then old days of downloading freeware rpgs like Vampyre: The talisman of invocation.

I'd never heard of that game, so I went and took a look at some videos about it on YouTube.  Yeah, that's the vibe!  The graphics weren't great, but it looks like it had a fair amount of stuff going on in it. Certainly fits in the same vein as the games that inspired Ultimate Odyssey.

My main memory of it was that the game was brutally difficult. The way to get levels early on was to rush into town, kill the jester then run out. Rinse and repeat. I remember doing this for like an hour and then finally I could handle a fight in the wild.

It's always interesting to hear the clever grind hacks people come up with in those old games.

People living in that town were probably like, "Man that adventurer really hates jesters!"