The Commodore 64 is about to get a brand-new role-playing game in the style of the classic Ultima titles.
Kouyate is a new project from Sarah Jane Avory, the developer of homebrew titles like Zeta Wing, Zeta Wing II, and the Briley Witch Chronicles series, and represents her decades-long dream of building an Ultima-like game for the Commodore machine.
It is being built with the help of the graphics artist @mementomoree.bsky.social and the musician @nordischsound, with a custom toolchain developed by Avory.
As far as we can tell, Avory first started teasing the project on YouTube back in November 2024, after finishing work on Briley Witch Chronicles 2, and has posted several updates on her progress since then — most recently publishing two new videos showing off a questline featuring an impassable mountain, an old lady, and an underground dungeon containing a lost brooch; and a pirate village and the game's sailing mechanic.
According to Avory on BlueSky, the game's name "Kouyate" is a reference to a song from the British band Level 42. Meanwhile, its story focuses on the player building a party and traveling across the land "to find the truth behind the darkness sweeping across the realms".
As in the early Ultima games, the action in the overworld is presented from a top-down, third-person view, with the player having the ability to travel north, east, south, and west, getting into the occasional scrape with monsters or visiting towns to resurrect dead party members, stay the night, or purchase new equipment.
As for the combat, it appears to all be turn-based, with players being able to dictate each of their party members' next moves from a list of potential commands depicted on the right-hand side of the screen.
It all looks extremely promising from what we can see so far, and we can't wait to hear more about the project in the future. According to Avory on BlueSky, the plan is to release it later this year, so we'll keep our eyes peeled for further updates as they appear.