Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures

Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures, also known as Unlimited Adventures, or by the acronyms FRUA or UA, is a computer game originally released on March 17, 1993 by Strategic Simulations, Inc. for the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh.

The chief feature of interest in this computer role-playing game is that it contains an editor that allows the user of the game to create new adventures that anyone else who owns the game can play. The game uses a variant of TSR, Inc.'s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules in the gameplay. The engine within which adventures are played is based on the "Gold Box" engine that made its debut in the game Pool of Radiance. Despite being based on an 8-bit engine, and having limited graphic resolution of 320 x 200 pixels, the versatility and ease of use offered by this engine has created a community of users who remain active to the present day.

The original game allowed the user to create dungeon modules, some editing and renaming of monsters and characters, and to import pictures and monster sprites. However, some art, such as walls, combat backdrops, and title screens, could not be changed in the unmodified game.

Those deficiencies have been overcome by a now fairly extensive library of hacks, that allows the designer to change things not changeable in the game out of the box. Other hacks allow the designer to alter the game play itself: to create new weapons and other items, to alter spells, and otherwise to change other aspects of gameplay. The availability of these hacks has led to the creation of a number of comprehensive "worldhacks," designed to allow the creation of science fiction, superhero, Western and Roman Empire adventures; there are several others. A programme called "UASHELL" applies and manages these hacks and enables the player to apply them.

More than seven hundred adventure designs have been created for this game. They vary widely in quality. The best of them are comparable to the original commercial releases.

External links:
The Magic Mirror, repository for all things FRUA: http://frua.dns2go.com