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What is the legacy, and who is Able? |
Some history...
Skip this paragraph if you're old skool. Now... Imagine a world without the Internet. Surprisingly, such a world existed not so long ago! A phenomenon called Bulletin Board Systems was blooming from the turn of the decade throughout the 90s (with a history starting much earlier).
Perplexed yet? Yes, I know, it's a strange concept. To read up on the BBS world, head to the BBS Corner. To put it shortly, a Bulletin Board System was a text-based community interaction system - you might consider it a "website" of that time, with the difference being that instead of typing in an address, you phoned a certain phone number with your modem to connect to the BBS. In a BBS there were chats, discussion forums, file download areas and a very particular breed of games called door games.
The Legacy of Able
In BBS's and their door games, since there were no images per se, graphics were displayed by clever use of colours and symbols found in the ASCII character set. Perhaps the most legendary door game ever was the Legend Of the Red Dragon - LORD for short - a hack'n'slash rpg game with intuitive controls, off-kilter humour, highly addictive gameplay and a large world to explore. You might say that these door games were a very early version of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games - the MMORPGs that are the hottest topic of the gaming world today. After all, you connected to a realm and competed in real time with dozens and even hundreds of other players in a shared world. A world that lived on after all the players went to sleep, which was something completely unique to door games at the time. No other multiplayer games offered such a world then, and would not offer for many years to come.
The original creator and international man of mystery behind the runaway success that was LORD was a (young kid at the time) man called Seth Able Robinson. Hallowed be thy name in the memories of all BBS-goers of those days. This game is a child of the revolution, part of the legacy of Seth A. Robinson.
Visit Robinson Technologies at www.rtsoft.com, Seth's company through which he does all sorts of game-related contract jobs and whatnot.
This game
This game is a unique production based loosely on some places and ideas introduced in LORD and LORD 2: The New World. Though an independent game, so much of this game owes itself to mr. Robinson's work that it's only fair that he gets acknowledgement.