Deathmasters BBS door game MOCK
 

I used to run a local BBS called "DaTaBuRn" on my 2400 baud modem. Granted, 14.4's were already out at the time, but the slow scroll of a 2400 really captures the nostalgia of old ANSI grafix. Okay, maybe i just couldn't afford one yet with my allowance, but slow scroll *IS* cool.

This game was always our favorite. I ran it in local mode yesterday and played through a little bit to get you guys some screenshots. i havent gotten to certain parts, so i will post those when i do.

with no further ado, i bring you

DeathMasters 1.5



An Axe going through Patrick Swayze's head?



This should be good!
here is a couple of of the other title screens...



Now it is time to pick my training style... lets check out the choices



Gut Distortion! something i feel like i am having after that mexican lasagna i ate last night.

main menu



ahhhhhh, pixelated violence at its best.

time to fight!



HOLY SHEEP SHIT, DILBERT?!?!
i have always hated people who wear ties.



It appears that i am only wearing a loin cloth, and dilbert is naked. technically we both have a dagger out.

after i beat him, i decided to fight again



well, i should probably have healed first, but whats the fun in that? i live in the edge, son.

But yeh, i am going to have to beg for my life like a little bitch and give them 400+ dollars to get away safely.

i should goto the armory.



i guess i need armor, seeing as how this is an ARMORY.



I take the bone reinforced quilt... because quilts are gay unless you have human bones attached.

all this shopping has made me tired, i should goto the pub!




spit and vomit cover the floor.. sounds like some places i have been to.
lets see what they have on tap



"I'm sorry sir, but does the Tequila Worm come with any tequila?"

he hands me a worm and tells me to savor the flavor.

When i go to "Take a Piss" i see people have written on the wall. I pull out my dagger(the bigger one) and etch something myself.



Well, i am drunk enough to go fight some more dilberts now. Lets GO!



Althought the fight was epic and i could write a whole article on it in itself, this picture says it all. Dilbert ripped out my spine and showed it to the whole internet like some kind of a trophy :(

so i log back in



and heal up!




and lets fight!


Hell yeah i want some steroids. Dilbert has one coming!

wait, and more good luck



well, the guy from hell's gut gave me a badass shield, but it appears i am still wearing a loin cloth.

I will spare you every single fight, but i fought a whole lot for you guys to level up. so here is the grand finale



i facepalm before i enter...



that was a bit anticlimactic , but i somehow feel like i have done something productive today...

more fights and then this.



wtf? Centuries ago? so this whole deathmasters thing takes place in the FUTURE?!



i picked when the cotton gin was invented... that was right?

so, i fight like a maniac for many turns more and then THIS!


hell no, i didn't spend all this hard work to just give my earnings away to some 4 armed death master



bring it on GORO!



shwooo, that was close.

at this point, i am so badass at this game i do not foresee my self dieing, so i am going to not heal and keep fighting where we can see some more cool ANSI's




I am going to play some more today and try to get to a level i can "MUTATE" from and find some more ansi's and fun storyline so look out for chapter 2!

also, as in most ansi related games there are ansi's that are tall and scroll down your screen. there is one that happens during the title screen of a guy ripping out someones spine. i am new to making animated gifs, but hopefully i will figure out how to make it animated as if you were seeing it in DOS.

I have no idea what this is but the last two pictures cracked me up. That and the Gut distortion.

What the heck is that? Looks kinda interesting...some early-era multiplayer game?

Shekk - I really wish I had this game on my BBS when I was running it back in the day. Thanks for sharing the photos of them

OxBlood - If you're not familiar about BBSes and their games, read the first two paragraphs in this recent article. Basically, anybody could run a private BBS of their own using a land line, and other people would dial into it with their modems. Once logged in, you could post on message boards, share files, and play ANSI graphic games like this Death Masters game. It all died out when the World Wide Web came into play, but it's good to see people haven't forgotten about them or how much fun they were.

The biggest downside is that usually only 2 people max can connect at the same time. Really popular BBS's were always jammed, but if you were an uploader you could bump leechers. cause you were 1337.

Interesting, that´s am era I missed completely...guess I was too young back then...thanks for the link though :)

a couple of my favorite bbs's had 10+ nodes + chatrooms but i think it depended directly on how many phone lines you had. in the later days wildcat even had an HTML browser and some bbs's had internet connectivity. But yeh, most BBS's had only 1 node so you would pretty much have to wait on one guy to finish up his stuff for the day and then call in. i used to use some option on the phone that would call me back when a number became unbusy.

This was awesome to read. Def looking forward to another installment. Classic pixel deaths.

if it ain't tradewars or L.O.R.D., it ain't sh*t

Tradewars and L.O.R.D. were fantastic, but they had nothing on The Pit.

so who is the Violet of the board? i wanna piece.

sorry to necropost...

BBSes are still chugging along today, but pairing newer technology with old
today we run bbses via telnet or ssh, and have web interfaces, flash apps, forums, ftp,email,etc

i run edge of oblivion at http://eob-bbs.com

some telnet bbs links are:
http://bbslist.bbses.info
http://telnetbbsguide.com [big list but not so many good ones]

some people even are running c64 bbses on the internet now, it's pretty cool stuff.

what did bbses in, in my opinion is bbs operators were against the internet, because it was a big threat. they should have just 'joined' the internet instead of fighting progress.

Nah, BBSes were very limited in what they could do compared to the internet... so I think that's what really did them in. Still good to see there are some running to this day, even if it is simply for the nostalgia of it all.

didn't they basically turn into MUDS?

thats what these remind me of :(

i missed the BBS era :< i used macs until i was 13, and by then the internet had firmly taken hold ('97).

instead I got to play Gemstone 3 on AOL. I remember gemstone being fun, but I really missed out on a lot of PC history...really, anything before Windows 95.

not really. a lot of bbses actually BECAME isps, and some could even provide internet access when there weren't viable isps in some cities at that time.

i still stand by my statement that the whole BBS VS INTERNET thing is
what brought an end to it. everyone considered it that it had to be one thing or the other, not even thinking that both could co-exist.

No, bbses did not turn into muds.

Look at today's social networks or popular websites with user interaction. That's what bbses evolved into.
most of the operators of such places started out with bbsing and brought that knowledge to their sites and services.

slashdot's commander taco, for example ran a bbs

:lol You make it sound like running a BBS was challenging. I used a can opener, therefore I am directly linked to the canning industry.

if you're referring to what i was saying, yes, running a bbs was challenging. you probably couldn't handle it.

and yes a lot of what was done on bbses was a precursor to what has been done on the internet with various popular websites and services. AND, as i said earlier it was
done by people involved in bbsing.

i guess that would be pretty difficult, like you were saying. As if sailing isn't dangerous enough already with the wet decks and such, now you gotta worry about it being extra slippery with all the banana peels lying around :(

You will receive his reply in one year

:lol
i didnt notice that, i just got carried away about banana boat sailors ;9

get down with your bad self.

You have arrived 11 months too early, I am sorry but your table is not ready. Please take one of these:



And when we are ready for you it will vibrate and the lights will flash

cool, always wanted one