The Official Book of Ultima

The Official Book of Ultima is a book about the Ultima series written by Shay Addams, with assistance from creator Richard Garriott and illustrations by Denis Loubet. It was first published in 1990 by COMPUTE! Publications, with a second edition following in 1992. The Official Book of Ultima comprises three parts, opening with a biographical account of Garriott's early experiences with fantasy settings and computer programming, his subsequent creation of the Ultima games, and his co-founding of Origin Systems. The second part of the book expands upon the development process behind Ultima VI: The False Prophet, while the third provides solutions for each installment (coverage varies by edition; see below), presented as semi-satirical narratives from the perspective of Addams' player character, Alfred.

Editions
The first edition of The Official Book of Ultima (ISBN 0-87455-228-1) is 244 pages long and carried a list price of $12.95 at release. It includes guides for Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, II, III, IV, V, and VI only.

The second edition (ISBN 0-87455-264-8) is 308 pages, with an original list price of $18.95. It features largely the same content as the first publication (with some revisions), however with solutions added for The Savage Empire; Martian Dreams; Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss; Ultima VII: The Black Gate; the Nintendo ports of NES-Port of Ultima III, IV, and V; and Runes of Virtue.

Trivia

 * The first edition contains a rare mention of Origin's cancelled Mythos project, which is absent in the later revision (although erroneously still referenced in its index).
 * In both editions, the Words of Power for Deceit and Wrong are misspelled in the walkthrough for Ultima V, respectively as fallaw and malul instead of fallax and malum.