Back in the early to mid 90's, before the Internet was what it is today, there were local bulletin board (BBS) systems. If you are old enough to have used BBSs and you were a gamer, you most likely played LORD.
LORD - Legend of the Red Dragon - was a multiplayer game that combined turn-based combat, social interaction, and competitive strategy into a text-based RPG experience unlike anything else at the time. It was simple, yet addictive. The chat system was primitive, even for that time, but somehow, it worked.
I can't begin to count the number of hours I spent playing LORD, but I can say that the game had a very profound effect on my life. After all, it was through LORD that I met my wife, and we have now been married for 26 years.
A little more history about LORD. The game was sold by the original author, Seth Able Robinson, to Metropolis Gameport around 1996. By the turn of the century, BBSs were dead, and so was LORD. LORD, itself, is now abandonware and can only be played if one has a DOS emulator (guilty as charged).
There have been remakes; most notably Legend of the Green Dragon, which captured both the charm and the spirit of LORD, but adapted for the Web. This game, too, was abandoned somewhere around 2009, although a fork is still maintained by Oliver Brendel, who is not only a good friend but, along with myself, was one of the original contributors. LoGD, in it's latest incarnation, is open source, and can be found on GITHub.
So, how does Red Dragon Rising fit? I don't know yet. I know that I am starting with a game similar to LORD in game play. It will have combat. It will have specialties. It will have the Town Square, the Forest and forest events. It will have an inn, a healer's hut, a bank, shops for weapon and armor, and, of course, the Red Dragon. To start, it will be a single-player game, but will be tapping into AI for emersion. For example, AI generated enemies in the forest, Ai narrated combat, and AI powered NPCs. Being a single-player game, it will not be as easy to defeat the dragon. There will be more levels and higher goals to reach to level up. I will be evaluating options for social interaction and replayability, but those things are down the road quite a way. After all, I've only started and the game is currently in it's alpha version.
If you are interested in what I've done thus far, check out the GitHub repo and check back to this site for updates. If you are a gamer or a developer (or both), I'd love to hear any feedback, especially as I get deeper into RDR's development. I'm really excited to bring this game to life and recapture the magic of Legend of the Red Dragon, and hopefully, I can both give those LORD lovers, such as myself, that sweet feeling of nostalgia, as well as introduce a new generation of gamers to the same charm me and so many like me fell in love with so many years ago.
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