The ULarn 1.6 Home Page

3 May 2004
ULarn 1.6.3a released.
This is a Windows 32 Graphical Interface version update only.
No other versions are affected.
This changes the Windows message handling code to use GetMessage instead of PeekMessage making it much more system friendly. The game should no longer try and use 100% of the CPU all the time.

7 Apr 2004
Added Windows TTY (text mode)executable download.
The TTY version was built using the pdcurses library. It was compiled using Borland C/C++ 5.5 command line tools.
Added tarball (.tar.gz) download for *nix systems.
Replaced all archives with repacked versions. This is mainly to remove unnecessary files from the archives as some debug files an other junk seem to have crept in.
Also fixed a minor niggle that I hadn't noticed before. At the end of the game the program no longer requires [return] to be pressed twice if the winner's scoreboard is empty. No gameplay changes were made. My winner's scoreboard is NOT empty so I didn't notice it during testing.

28 Mar 2004
ULarn 1.6 patchlevel 3 released.
OK, it's been a while since the last update, but I didn't want to release 1.6.3 until the Amiga version was complete.
This version adds:

A unix/TTY interface version. This can also be compiled for Windows using the pdcurses library.

An AmigaDos version (AGA only).

Various bug fixes, including the taxation bug.

14 Sep 2003
ULarn 1.6 patchlevel 2 is now available.
This version adds unix/X11 support as well as various bug fixes.

So just what is ULarn

ULarn is a dungeon type adventure game similar in concept to HACK, ROGUE or MORIA, but with a different feel and winning criteria.

Screenshot from the Linux/X11 version

Larn has long been one of my favorite roguelike games and I played it a lot on the Amiga. It is the only roguelike game I have ever actually won.
Having turned to the dark side and started using a PC I began looking for a version of Larn that will run on the PC.
After a long search on the web all I found was a really old version of Larn 12.3 for DOS with ASCII graphics and many bugs.
Compared to the Amiga version (graphics, menus, a really cool interface) this sucked.
Having found the source code for ULarn 1.5pl4 in my search I decided to do a make over of ULarn to Windows, adding graphics, menus etc.
It took about a month of my spare time to restructure the code into something a bit more reasonable and get the first more or less playable version working under Windows 98. A further month of debugging was required to get all of the features working and make it at least moderately stable.

About this version

ULarn 1.6 is an upgraded version of ULarn for Windows 32 and Unix/X11.
The current version of ULarn is 1.6 Patchlevel 3, 28 March 2004.

It features graphic tiles instead of ASCII text display and supports menu items for most commands.
The code is not just ported from the Unix version, but has been almost completely rewritten.
More bugs that you can imagine have been eliminated from the original code.

Part of the design aim for this version was to make it easily portable to different systems.
All system dependent code has been isolated into a single module.
Making a new version for another operating system should be relatively simple.

New features for ULarn 1.6 Patchlevel 3:

A Unix/TTY interface has been added for those who must have the '@' as their avatar in all roguelike games.

The Amiga port has finally been completed.

Improved graphic tiles.

Various bug fixes.

New features for ULarn 1.6 Patchlevel 2:

Unix/X11 support has been added.

Various interface tweaks and bug fixes. See the readme.txt file for details.

New features for ULarn 1.6 Patchlevel 1:

An 'enhanced_interface' option has been added to change how opening doors works so it is more like nethack. The 'classic' interface is still the default. See the readme.txt file and in game help for mode details.

Added a new magic item. "What is it?", I hear you ask. Play the game and find out.

The source code now compiles under MinGW and a MinGW makefile has been added to the source distribution

Downloads:

NOTE: I do not provide executable versions for *nix/X11. If you want to play ULarn 1.6 on a *nix system then download the source and follow the instructions in install_x11.txt or install_tty.txt.

Click here to get ULarn 1.6.3a for Win32

Click here to get ULarn 1.6.3 for Win32, TTY interface

Click here to get ULarn 1.6.3 for Amiga

Click here to get the ULarn 1.6.3a source code (zip).

Click here to get the ULarn 1.6.3a source code (tarball).