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There IS a way to save! I just beat the game in about a week despite the system rebooting twice while unattended (thanks, Windows update) using this technique: virtualization and snapshots.



I'll admit upfront that if your only interest in virtualization is to be able to play Ultima VI, then unless that desire is really, really strong, this approach will seem like way overkill.



In any case, VMWare Player is free, and so is VirtualBox. Pick one and install. Then you need to use your virtualization software to create a virtual machine and install an operating system on it. Easiest way to do this is to get hold of an .iso (CD / DVD image) for the OS of your choice. If you want to run Windows on the virtual machine, it will require another license = more money. Therefore, consider a Linux-based OS, like Ubuntu, Elementary, or Bodhi (all oriented toward non-experts).



Once it is up and running and networked, navigate here, play the game a bit, and when you get to a point where you'd like to "save", just take a snapshot via your virtualization software. Even if you reboot the host, you can then bring your virtual machine up again and simply revert to that snapshot.



As for the game itself, I still love it, but must say there are a couple of times in Ultima VI that the way ahead is pretty obscure, and if you miss it, good luck ever figuring out how to beat the game as originally intended (sans help from the Internet). For example, at one point you're several levels down in a cave looking for something you must have to make progress in the game. There are literally dozens of holes to choose from to drop into. The one you're supposed to drop into is marked with a gold nugget, which is great if you can guess that that would be significant, but why would you, considering that in other caves, gold nuggets occasionally are just lying on the ground for you to pick up. So I'm surveying the level and naturally picked up the free gold and moved on, and then EVEN IF I'd somehow later realized "OH, MAYBE THE NUGGET WAS A SIGN", there's no way I could have remembered which of all the holes that nugget was originally next to.



After that experience, I stopped feeling any guilt whatsoever looking to the Internet after feeling like I'd given a section of the game the old college try.



And then also, weirdness, at one point I set some artifacts down in precise locations because that's part of the puzzle to complete the game, and I realized I was missing one ingredient I'd left in my room in the castle for safekeeping, so I go retrieve it and come back, and now one of the other artifacts was just gone. And there was no way to get another one, and no way to complete the game, so I had to restore a snapshot, but thank goodness I was at least able to do that.



So four, not five, stars for this piece of nostalgia. So grateful to the Archive for hosting it!

- June 2, 2015Use Virtualization to Save