Category Archives: Door game memories

A collection of blog posts remembering individual BBS door games in detail.

I completed my 7-year quest to play Thieves’ Guild

These two screenshots show images of the sea shore, and a sea battle, from the Thieves’ Guild front-end client.

The sky is clear, the breeze is strong. A perfect day to make the long sea voyage to Mythyn. You prepare your galley, hire a crew of sailors, and cast off.

But a few hours into your trip, the dreaded words appear: “Thou seest rippling waters…”

Sea serpent? Giant squid? Something’s out there, and it’s headed your way.

So it goes in “Thieves’ Guild,” a unique BBS door game for the Atari ST.

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Space Dynasty memories

They say first impressions are everything. That seems to have been true for teenage me when I tried Hollie Satterfield’s BBS door game Space Dynasty — and wrote it off.

But first impressions are often wrong.

(Also, don’t miss the follow-up interview with Space Dynasty creator Hollie Satterfield)

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Assassin memories

Title screen of the PC version of 'Assassin.'

Title screen of the PC version of ‘Assassin.’

A man cloaked in black approaches thee …

“I see thou art new in these parts. Have ye come to join?” he asks.

“Yes,” I answer.

I watch as the man chants. Slowly the individual words flash on my screen: “Creare” … “an” … “vita” … “Irata!”

And so another assassin is born.

As a teen I thought this was a fun way to begin a game. The archaic grammar, the Latin spell, the medieval setting, everything. Many years later, I still find Assassin by Kevin MacFarland a great game to play.

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Global War memories

I was introduced to the board game Risk around 1999-2000 by good friends from my college newspaper, The Current. Most were excellent players, each with a favorite strategy and plan of attack.

Though I had never played the board game before, I discovered that I already knew, more or less, how to play. I had learned years earlier by playing a similar game for BBSes called Global War by Joel Bergen.

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Solar Realms Elite memories

In his blog post reacting to Wikipedia’s deletion of its Space Empire Elite article, Benj Edwards asked folks to preserve BBS door game history by writing up articles about particular games.

That’s just what I plan to do on this blog. I’m going to remember my favorite games — and also talk with door game creators.

Today I kick things off with some personal reflections on Solar Realms Elite.

(Be sure to read the follow-up interview with SRE creator Amit Patel)

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