A few weeks back I posted about my experiment of porting the Synchronet javascript version of Legend Of the Red Dragon to typescript, and creating a web-based interface that included RiptermJS for full RIP graphics support. Well, I've been a bit obsessed with tinkering with it in my free time, so I'm here to report on my updates!
The big one: I've been working on a whole new responsive UI for mobile devices! The RIP screens just aren't formatted well for a phone, and using a phone's keyboard for every input in ANSI mode SUCKS. So my goal was to make LORD as easily playable as possible on a phone without needing the keyboard (most of the time).
How? I integrated an event system into LORD that emits information about every prompt in the game, what keys the prompt can accept, whether it takes a numeric input or a string, etc.. and it sends that information to the web client, so that the client can dynamically create a native menu of options that you can tap on with your finger.
The only time the device's keyboard is actually needed is when you enter a number (like how much to deposit to the bank) or a line of text (like a mail message), but these are also done through regular HTML elements in the new UI and not through the terminal window, which makes it much easier.
Expanding on that UI, it's also nicely responsive on desktop, so on larger screen sizes it shows a different battle interface with enemy graphics and HP status bars, etc. There's also some graphical flourishes when you earn XP, lose HP, etc (you can turn those on and off in the settings). I'm considering adding additional graphics to the various features/locations to replace some of the text prompts and make it a bit more RIP-like, that's probably going to be my next task.
To try it out, click the "Settings" button in the top-right, and change the "Display Mode" to "Web UI". Mobile devices should go to UI mode by default, desktops will still go to RIP mode by default. Of course, you can still play in plain ANSI/text mode if that's your preference.
Next big thing: In-Game Modules (IGMs). I found a treasure trove of old Pascal source code and binaries for various IGMs, and with some AI help I was able to decompile and port over a bunch of popular IGMs and addons that don't exist in the SBBS version: Felicity's Temple Freeworld II The L.O.R.D. Cavern Seth's Lotto Sandtiger's Bar Violet's Cottage Team Lord!
These are all accessible in the "Other Places" from the Town menu.
Along with those IGMs, I also ported over NPCLord, which provides NPC players that interact with the real players (I've only added a couple NPCs to the current game so far), and LordEvent, which generates random daily events for each player.
I'd really like to get some more players in the game to try out Team Lord and see if we can get some fun team interactions going.
I want to stress that I have not changed the actual gameplay at all. This is still 100% faithful to the gameplay of the original v4.08 DOS version and the IGMs, and is now more faithful than the Synchonet port.
OK, enough rambling, PLAY IT HERE:
Web:
https://lord.town
Telnet: telnet.lord.town, port 2323
P.S. you can register and login with the same username/password in both the web and telnet versions! Just not at the same time. :)
What would encourage more players to get involved with this? Are there any other IGMs you'd like me to port over, or ones I should remove? Should I set up a "serious" tournament game with no IGMs (or maybe just Team Lord), and a separate "fun" regular game with all the IGMs?
Any bug reports or constructive feedback would be appreciated! submitted by /u/talisto [link] [comments]