New releases, BBS happenings and updates to the games, newest first.
Sengoku 1.1.0: multi-player games, and a desktop edition
Sengoku: Road to Unification can now be played online with other people. Open https://retro.theiguru.au/sengoku/ and choose Multi-Player game on the title screen. Make a player name and password, start a game and give your friends its invite code, or join a game with a code someone gave you. Up to eight players each lead a clan; the computer leads the rest. Sengoku players are separate from The Broken Seal's, so make a new name.
Give your orders whenever it suits you during the month. Each one takes effect at once, so if a rival gets in first you see the result when you next look. When you invade, you fight the battle yourself on the hex field, even against another player's province; the game server replays your moves to work out the result. The month ends when every player has ended their turn, or when the game's time limit runs out: 12, 24, 48 or 72 hours, chosen by the person who starts the game. If you haven't played by then, the computer plays your clan's month and you keep your clan.
You get an email when a game starts, after each month with the start of your news, two hours before the deadline if you haven't ended your turn, and when the game is over. You can turn the emails off.
Sengoku is also out for your own computer, for Windows and Linux, as version 1.1.0. The desktop edition is the single-player game, with the same rules, screens and music as the browser one. Downloads are at https://retro.theiguru.au/sengoku/desktop/ and on the BBS in Heisenbergs Files. The documentation is at https://retro.theiguru.au/docs/sengoku/start
Both editions are free software under the GNU GPL.
The Broken Seal 0.6.0: play online with friends
The Broken Seal now runs in your web browser, and you can play it online with friends. Open https://retro.theiguru.au/brokenseal/play/ and choose 7, Multi-Player game, on the title screen. Make a player name and password, start a game and give your friends its invite code, or join a game with a code someone gave you. Each of you leads a house; the computer leads the rest.
Everyone gives their orders whenever it suits them. The month is worked out as soon as every player has ended their turn, or when the game's time limit runs out. The person who starts the game picks the limit: 12, 24, 48 or 72 hours. If you haven't played by then, the computer gives your orders for that month and you keep your house. You get an email when a month is done, with the start of your report, and a reminder two hours before the deadline if you haven't ended your turn. You can turn the emails off.
On your own, the browser edition is the full game, the same as the desktop one: hex battles you can fight yourself, towns, diplomacy and coalitions. Saves stay in your browser, and Export saves a campaign to a file that the desktop edition opens.
The desktop edition for Windows and Linux is also out as version 0.6.0. It now has one player per computer: the old take-turns-at-one-keyboard mode has gone, since online games replace it. It also has the hex battles from 0.5.0 and two fixes. Downloads are at https://retro.theiguru.au/brokenseal/ and on the BBS in Heisenbergs Files.
Both editions are free software under the GNU GPL.
Sengoku: a new strategy game you can play in your browser
Sengoku: Road to Unification is a strategy game set in sixteenth-century Japan, written here and free to play on this site. Choose one of 28 clans in the 1560 or 1582 scenario. Then govern your provinces, raise and train soldiers, make alliances and send ninja against your rivals. Invade a neighbouring province and you fight the battle yourself on a hex field. Hold all thirty-eight provinces to win.
It has the same retro look as The Broken Seal: a sixteen-colour screen, portraits for every lord and governor, and its own music.
Play it at https://retro.theiguru.au/sengoku/ with the keyboard, mouse or touch. Nothing to install. Your saves stay in your browser: there are five save slots, and the game also saves itself at the end of every month. Press 7 in the game for help.
The game is free software under the GNU GPL. The source code is linked from the top of the game page.
The Broken Seal 0.4.5: a strategy game for Windows and Linux
The Broken Seal is a strategy game written here, and it is now free to download for Windows and Linux. The emperor has vanished and the realm is split between six houses and outlaw bands. Each month you give orders to your provinces and officers: develop the land, train troops, go to town to recruit soldiers, trade grain and hire travellers at the inn, and send armies against your rivals. Officers tire and need rest, and in winter snow can close the roads.
It plays alone against the computer at five levels, or with friends taking turns at the same computer. Every campaign has a new map, and there is no time limit.
Download it, with the player manual and the source (GNU GPL), at https://retro.theiguru.au/brokenseal/ - it is also in the Heisenbergs Files area on the BBS.
The Broken Seal 0.4.6
A new version of The Broken Seal is out for Windows and Linux. A province your army takes is now held, but it is not part of your realm until you name a governor, usually the army's commander, whose men then join the new garrison. New recruits join untrained and lower a garrison's training, so they need drilling before they fight well. End month is now the last order on the menu.
Sticky Notes puts coloured notes on your desktop. Each note is its own window that you can move, colour and pin on top, with bold, italic, lists and a searchable list of all your notes. Notes are saved on your own computer: there is no account and no cloud service.
If you have more than one computer at home, Sticky Notes can keep your notes the same on all of them. Any computer running Sticky Notes can be the sync server, or you can run the server on a home server. Your notes only travel inside your own network.
It is free software under the GNU GPL, and the files are also on the BBS in Heisenbergs Files.
Ember Reach 0.5: a new space strategy game on the BBS
Ember Reach is a space strategy door game written here for the Kalgoorlie Retro BBS, and it is now open to every registered user. Each player runs a house across a cluster of star systems: settle worlds, build fleets and buildings, research, trade and make treaties, and keep the Hollow at bay. The travel lanes between systems open and close as the days go by. Everyone gives orders during the day, and the game moves on one day each night.
Two computer houses play too. They leave a new player alone for their first 10 days, so there is time to get going.
To play, telnet to bbs.theiguru.au, press X for the games and pick Ember Reach.
For sysops, version 0.5 is free to download for Linux, Windows and DOS, with the source (GNU GPL), at https://retro.theiguru.au/emberreach/ - it is also in the Heisenbergs Files area on the BBS. There is also emberbot.lua, a SyncTERM-Lua script that plays a day for you.
LORD FP for Windows
LORD FP, our Free Pascal Legend of the Red Dragon, now comes in a Windows version as well as DOS and Linux. It is a 64-bit DOOR32.SYS door: Synchronet, Mystic and other Windows BBSes hand it the caller's connection, and the player goes back to the BBS when they quit.
It is the same game as the Linux version and uses the same files. DOS LORD 4.06 In-Game Modules run from Other Places in DOSBox-X, which is included, and DOSPROMPT.BAT opens a DOS prompt in the game folder for setting them up.
LORD Server 1.4 lets other BBSes link to a server without asking its sysop first. A BBS signs up once through its rlogin door, using the server user name register, and the server gives it a key. After that its door sends the key, and its players get accounts with the BBS's tag added (Bob@SHS), so a player called Bob on one BBS and a Bob on another are two different players.
The console's bbs command lists the BBSes that have signed up, and can give a BBS a new key, turn it off or remove it. BBSes listed in RLoginAllow keep working as before, without a key.
Sysops can link their BBS to the LORD Server here: make a Synchronet door with ?rlogin bbs.theiguru.au:5130 -s register -P and run it once.
LORD Server 1.0 is out: a Legend of the Red Dragon game server for Windows. It does for LORD what TWGS does for TradeWars. Players connect to it directly by telnet, and BBSes link to it with an rlogin door, so players from several boards can meet in the same realm.
It hosts several games at once, makes accounts for BBS players automatically, and has a console that shows who is on and the log as it happens. It can run as a Windows service. The game is LORD FP, our Free Pascal version of Legend of the Red Dragon.
Download the installer, an MSI or a zip at https://retro.theiguru.au/lordsrv/ - the installer shows a getting-started guide for new sysops when it finishes. The files are also in the Heisenbergs Files area on the BBS.
You can try it on the Kalgoorlie Retro BBS: telnet to bbs.theiguru.au, press X for the games and pick LORD - Windows Server.
LORD Server 1.2: The Pawn Shop
LORD Server 1.2 runs The Pawn Shop 3.40. Its door kit can't work with LORD at the root of a drive, and 1.1 gave the DOS add-ons the game folder as C:\. IGMs now see the game as C:\LORD\, the same layout as a DOS BBS.
If you set up IGMs under 1.1, set them up again for C:\LORD\, or keep the old layout for that game with DOSGameDir=C:\ in its lord.ini. The sysop guide has the details, and the steps for The Pawn Shop.
Also fixed: if a player hung up inside an IGM, its DOSBox-X could be left running and block the next visit.
LORD Server 1.1 runs LORD 4.06's add-ons, the In-Game Modules in Other Places. They are DOS programs, so the server runs them in DOSBox-X, which now comes with it, along with a small FOSSIL driver of its own for the player's connection. The console's new dos command opens a DOS prompt in a game's folder for installing and setting them up.
Also new: Start menu items and a console command to make the server a Windows service at any time, whichever installer you used.
The Dragon Vault and Barak's House are tested. The Pawn Shop doesn't start under DOSBox-X yet; that is being worked on.
Download 1.1 and read the sysop guide at https://retro.theiguru.au/lordsrv/ - upgrading from 1.0 keeps your games, accounts and settings.
Welcome to Kalgoorlie Retro Gaming!
The new website is up. It's the front door to everything we run: the Kalgoorlie Retro BBS, the DOS Arcade and our brand new Legend of the Green Dragon server.
Legend of the Green Dragon is open for players now at https://retro.theiguru.au/lotgd/ - new characters start on the Isle of Wen, and the new day ticks over at midnight Kalgoorlie time.
Kalgoorlie