News

For all the gen on what's happening in the world of Ultra, this page is where you want to be. A complete chronology of the game, including its development diary, is right here for you to digest.

8th February 2009
Ultra has now been made completely free for you to download and play. You are of course encouraged to donate a little money towards costs and such, but essentially you can now play it all gratis and for as long as you like. We've also repackaged the game in a standard Windows Installer to make installation on Vista and Windows 7 systems far less painful. So go ahead and enjoy the ride!

30th June 2007
And another release of Ultra hits the web for you to download and play. This is pretty much an uneventful release as far as you guys are concerned, but a lot of code has been rewritten and major changes have occurred under the hood. A lot of the core system management code for file IO, memory allocation, debugging etc. has been rewritten from the ground up. This won't mean very much for the play experience, but it has given a much firmer base for moving the game forward, and even reusing this core library code for future games (I'm sure this will happen at some point).

A change to the game that you might, just might be able to detect is a complete rewrite of the audio reproduction system. This is now more efficient and more robust than it used to be, and the inclusion of EAX has enabled the use of advanced audio features to further enhance the game. EAX is barely used right now (though you should be able to hear a change to the audio output as you pass from one sector to the next) but it will be used moreso in the short-term future.

I've also improved the explosions for the tankers just to make me feel like I've actually added something visually to this new release! In addition to this, I've much improved the beat detection code that picks up the beat of the music which is represented on the screen by various means, not least of which is the beat meter on the right-hand side of the HUD. Anyway, download and enjoy the game, there's more to come soon. Next up is a couple of new sectors of play, followed by a bonus level system to help you improve those high scores!

9th April 2007
Yet another new release of Ultra is now available for you to download and play. Now featuring two new sectors of play - give it a go and take a swim in the psychedelic swirl.

18th March 2007
A new release of Ultra is now available for you to download and play. Now featuring different sectors of play each with their own background and with some extra effects as you transition from one to another, the game is looking better than ever.

Some other improvements are:

Support for many varied screen resolutions
Support for wide-screen displays
Bug fixes in the collision-detection code
Revised intro screen
Improvements to sound effects
Game visuals react to the beat of the background music
Can now install the game to a folder of your choice
Huge code-infrastructure changes for future developments

Work is continuing on the background visuals for the different sectors over the next few months, making the game ever more varied, and with any luck, a joy to behold. So knock yourself out and download it now while it's hot!

16th January 2007
It's been quite a while since I last updated the game - life intervened in the way that it always does I'm afraid. However, I'm back again now for ready another run at getting some development done. This time, I'll be concentrating on the backgrounds and some special effects.

So look out for a new release with some trippy goodness over the next couple of months!

Complete news archive for 2006