This was one of the first games I ever played on my brand new Packard Bell XT, with its tiny orange monochrome monitor running SIMCGA to simulate a 320x200 4-co

This was one of the first games I ever played on my brand new Packard Bell XT, with its tiny orange monochrome monitor running SIMCGA to simulate a 320x200 4-color CGA screen. It was a cracked copy, and so I didn't have a cloth map. Instead, I would use the in-game map "gems" to show a tiny part of the map, sail a little bit further, use it again, and so forth, all the time drawing a complete map of the world in pencil. I also didn't have a manual, and so I didn't know how to mix reagents to make spells. In one town I had to get past a magical barrier and didn't know how to make the "dispell" spell. I ended up writing a poor man's map editor in QuickBasic, finding the hex code that corresponded to the wall, then using a hex editor to zap that section out of existence. I figured that was some pretty powerful magic right there. While in the hex editor I found a strange bunch of text, including the words "Note: you can't win!" and "Yvonne Yu has big balls!" The latter was in the world map and manifested itself as a giant structure in the southeast ocean consisting of dozens of writhing characters floating in the sea. I took painstaking notes, writing down every possible hint I received from every person in every city. It took months. I became somewhat obsessed with the game, thinking about it during all hours. At one point I realized I wanted to equip all my party members with magic bows. I did this by going to the bridge just to the east of Castle Brittania and walking over and over until trolls appeared. Shoot, get treasure, walk back to Britain and sell, rinse and repeat. Over and over. I did get those bows though. Eventually I made it to the depths of the Stygian Abyss and faced the final question. That's when the game bugged out and would say nothing more than "It looks like you could use a good horse!" repeatedly. I figured this was Yvonne Yu's handiwork. Damn you, Yvonne Yu, wherever you are! A few years later I saved up enough to buy the Ultima 1-6 collection, which included all the games on a single CD with manuals and many of the cloth maps, and a single token (the metal coin with the virtues symbol on it from Ultima V). Disappointed that it wasn't the ankh, I went and bought an ankh on a chain from a street vendor and wore it a couple of times before it started feeling a bit weird. Anyway, I went back, using my handwritten notes, and finished Ultima IV completely, getting the end scene noted in the article. Ultima IV was my favorite game for a long time. Even then I knew there was something special about it.