Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss

General

• The game and its sequel have a fanmade mouselook patch for more modern PC controls, alongside some other QOL improvements. See the PC Gaming Wiki page for example for links and instructions.

• The game very much assumes you've read through the manual properly, at the very minimum for the list of spells and the generic level up mantras.

• Shift+J is a standing long jump, or Ctrl+Shift if using the mouselook patch. You'll be using it a lot.

• The game has no qualms about softlocking you from beating it should you throw away the wrong item or anger the wrong NPC, so save before talking to people and leave important things where you can find them again. Also while it doesn't happen often, if you see an error message in your log, it's probably safer to load a previous save.

Exploration & Items

• There is no in-game time limit. Items dropped on the ground will also stay there forever, so you can safely stash items you don't want to lug around but might need later. There is a cap for how many separate objects the game can handle existing on a single level, so you might not want to dump every single individual rock and gem on the floor, but use stacks and containers instead. This cap is fairly high though.

• You can write notes on your map. There is no quest log, so take either in-game or external notes of anything and anyone that seems remotely important.

• The Silver Seed you can find near the start of the game will act as a checkpoint when planted, and it can be safely removed and re-planted at will. There is no penalty to dying if you have one planted, so it can double as a sort of fast travel point if you die on purpose by jumping into lava or by repeatedly slamming yourself into a wall with running jumps.

• Some secret doors need to be examined first before you're able to open them, even if you know their location. Some also only open from one side.

• Long poles can be used to activate switches that are out of your reach.

• When you acquire a certain recipe, you have to hold on the recipe itself to create the item, not just write down its contents.

• There are a few "generic" items you will eventually need that may not seem obvious a first. Such as
  a bowl, a flute, thread and some incense
  . Anything with a special sounding name (obviously). Also a rock hammer in case you get trapped by a cave-in.

Attributes & Skills

• Your three main attributes are randomized at character creation based on your class, ranging from 12 to 30 and always adding up to 60. Unlike your skills, these are set in stone for the entire game. Your carrying capacity is tied to Strength, so very scrawny characters can expect much more inventory shuffling.

• Ultima Underworld is primarily a game about fighting in melee and using magic to assist in exploring. Archery is not especially viable due to limited ammunition, and you can't cast most offensive spells at melee range.

• More or less all non-combat, non-spellcasting skills have either niche uses or are supplanted either by spells or other in-game methods such as bashing open doors instead of picking locks. Lore remains useful for being able to tell which items are magical without having to cast Identify on everything you pick up, though.

• One skill point in Attack essentially counts as half a point in each individual weapon skill for purposes of offense. As usual, swords are a safe choice if you want to specialize.