Game 539: Legend of the Red Dragon II: New World (1992)

I've seen a more elaborate title screen on other sites, but I can't get one to come up.

        

Legend of the Red Dragon II: New World

United States

Robinson Technologies (developer and original publisher); Metropolis Gameport (later publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS

Date Started: 1 February 2025

       

Like its predecessor, Legend of the Red Dragon II is a BBS door game (here's Wikipedia's summary of what that means) designed by Seth Able Robinson. (More on the history of the game in future entries, but the version I found is an update from 2001.) I had never played a BBS door game when I played the first Dragon, nor had I really played any multiplayer RPGs at all. Dragon gave me my first experience of killing, and being killed by, other players' characters. Alas, I don't think that's going to be possible with the sequel: Whereas several sites host variants of the first Dragon, mimicking the BBS door era, I couldn't find any such online hosts for New World. The game can be played offline with a solitary single character, but the experience misses half of what New World is supposed to be about.

    

Every day you log in, you get news about the previous day. On the original BBS, this would show multiple pages of feats from multiple characters.

    

New World follows the basic template of the original game, offering a simple character sheet (your only attributes are experience and "Charm"), a simple inventory (you equip one weapon and one item of armor), and simple combat (fight or run; I don't think there are any spells). As you wander the world, you stumble upon a variety of NPCs and random encounters, most of which give you at least a few options for dealing with them.

What New World adds is first an explorable game world with ANSI character graphics, looking but not feeling much like a roguelike. Instead of just bumbling through a menu forest with no real direction or coordinates, you navigate your smiley face character over (reportedly) 300 screens with NPCs to meet, stores to visit, and buildings to explore.

    

Life in a bucolic village.

      

The second major addition is an alignment system. You gain or lose points depending on your reactions to various encounters and how you treat NPCs. There is also a "quest point" statistic that (if I understand it correctly) causes certain events to be tripped as you meet certain thresholds. 

      

The game's synopsis of its alignment system.

     

All of this sounds great; the game is competently programmed and structured. I wouldn't mind a little more complexity to character development, combat, and inventory, but I otherwise like the focus on qualitative encounters. The problem is that, as with the original, the encounters are so sophomoric, the text so juvenile, the options so obnoxious, that I spent more time rolling my eyes and cringing than enjoying what the game had to offer. For instance, at one point, I entered an old woman's house and found her making a stew. These were my "dialogue options":

   

• Whatup, ugly hag?
• Hi. Damn you're ugly!
• Good lord, woman!! What happened to your face?

    

Is one of these supposed to be "good"? There is no dialogue option in the entire game so far that doesn't make the character sound like a little turd who deserves to get swatted by everyone he meets.

    

Each character starts with a brief creation process that begins: "There once was a poor _______ couple who lived in a small village called Stonebrook." The blank is filled in with several possible values. I saw "Elwin," "Magi," and "Geengish." The game doesn't tell you what any of these names mean, and they don't seem to have any effect on the character. The town for me is always "Stonebrook," but it's highlighted as if it's a variable, so perhaps it's possible to change it somewhere. You get to choose where the character is a boy or girl and give him or her a name. 

    

Dad is a bit rude. Fortunately, he won't be in the picture long.

      

The game begins in the home the character shares with his mother. (I'm curious how this worked with multiple players. Did they share one house?) He wakes up in his bedroom with his mother hollering from the kitchen. The character and NPCs are represented by smiley faces; other ANSI characters are used for walls and furniture. Any roguelike similarities end there, as there are only a couple of valid keyboard commands. You interact with the world primarily by bumping into things, which might get you a short message on the main screen or take you to a separate encounter/dialogue screen.

   

And the realm better watch itself.

      

The game's instructions walk the player through these opening turns. Bumping into table nets you 5 gold pieces. Bumping into your mother initiates a dialogue in which she asks you to go pick some wildberries for a pie. You can say, "Sure, whatever. I want that pie!" or "Naw, git 'em yourself, old bag. I'm going to town!" Later, there's an option to strangle her. So that's special.

          

There is no way not to be rude to your mother.

      

Outside the door is East Stonebrook Village, the character's house one of five surrounded by forests and, I guess, mountains. There are roads out of town to the north and west. There are a few signs you can bump into to get the name of the town. The berry patch is in a little clearing to the east, but I take some time to enter the other houses first. All of them have a variety of adults and children with one line of dialogue, only a couple of them helpful. In one, "Uncle Lenny" advises not to believe the Dragon Tooth Clan. There's a reference to a tree fort built outside of town, where you're safe from attack.

     

That's some backstory we didn't need.

       

I get the berries and return to mother, who now wants me to buy some milk in town. The Town of Stonebrook is to the west of East Stonebrook Village. It has a grocery store, Winthrog's Weapons, a pawn shop, and a healer. The grocery store not only sells milk but also wildberries, I guess in case you were incapable of finding them. At the weapon shop, the cheapest item is 10 gold pieces (I only have 4 after buying the milk), but Winthrog mentions that the "crazy old man" who lives in the shack south of town has a fake wall.

    

Stonebrook.

    

Returning to mother's house, I am rewarded with a pie and one quest point. Lacking any specific direction, I begin exploring the surrounding area, which consists of 10 screens. To go farther, you have to get past an NPC named Neb who demands 50 gold pieces. I have the following encounters in the area:

   

• There is indeed a treehouse in the Village Forest, but the kids already inside want a password, which I don't have.

• In Northeast Stonebrook Village, I visit the house of my friend Wendle, who dreams about traveling to big cities like PortTown and Flagcity.

• A couple of times, the game notes that a bird flies near me, and I can hit it with a stone. Trying to play a "good" character, I choose not to do that.

• In South Stonebrook is the old woman's house. She's making a stew. I give her the egg I got from one of the chickens and try a bite. The game says that it "tastes like crap." There doesn't seem to be any result.

• There's a cave on a screen called Greba's Field, but I don't have any way to make light.

         

On the screens outside of town, I encounter the first battles with angry hens, hedgehogs, rabid dogs, and I think one wild boar. I lose a few hit points while killing them, but gain a few gold pieces, experience points, and (from the hens) eggs. Once I have the heavy coat (see below), the enemies stop being able to damage me, but I can't do any damage to the hedgehog until I get my first weapon, a dagger. Again, combat options are just attacking and running, so there's not much strategy here.

       

Combat with a wild boar. I don't know what a "jimmy" is.

    

I get a quest from the "crazy old man" mentioned by Winthrog. He lives in a "strange cabin" which gives its name to the entire screen. He tells me he was once a great warrior, to which my options are to laugh at him or say, "If you were such a great warrior, why do you live in this dump?," yet another taste of the quality of role-playing the game offers. On prompting, which includes giving him the wildberry pie, he relates that he used to live in Greentree, training warriors. He is, in fact, Turgon, the trainer from the first game. After the player character won that game, someone planted a satchel of stolen gems in Turgon's house and dropped a dime on him, resulting in his exile. I vow to clear his name if I can make it to Greentree.

   

Turgon also mentions that there's a treasure in his house if I can find it. Prompted by Winthrog's rumor, I begin testing the walls for secret doors until I find one that leads to a small chamber to the south. In it is a heavy coat, which becomes my first piece of armor.

    

Again, I wonder how this works with multiple players. Do they all have individual conversations with Turgon and get a copy of his coat?

           

The game is set up to only allow you to play 3,000 moves per day. It warns you as time runs out. I suspect the goal is to make it to a safe place (the tree house?) to avoid getting killed by another player as you sleep. Since there are no other players, I don't mind so much when I collapse on the road. Fortunately, the configuration file has instructions for advancing the game day whenever you want, so you don't have to live under this limit.

My character sheet at the end of this session.

     

Day 3

 

I didn't play for a day, which didn't stop the game from counting it anyway. On Day 3, I give it another 3,000 moves. Re-exploring the areas I've already explored, I find:

   

• The pawn shop will buy chicken eggs for 5 gold pieces. That's about $1,500 in real-world money, so it's about the same.

• The pawn shop sells rusty daggers, healing potions, and a world map. I buy the world map. You can call it up with "M" and it shows what it proclaims, although its proportions are a bit off.

       

The world map, a bit compressed on the horizontal axis.

      

• Hagar, the owner of the pawn shop, says there's a magic tree on Neb's Road. Sure enough, there's a tree that if you bump into it warps you to the upper part of the map, where you can exit to the north via a single square. This takes you to a screen with a restaurant called Jack's, but everything they serve is too expensive for me now. Because the dishes are so expensive, I don't really look at them, but now that I'm studying the screen shot, it strikes me that the "whole gloworm [sic]" might be the key to lighting up the dark cave.

   

Jack's restaurant needs a cheeseburger.

    

• It occurs to me there might be another use for the wildberries and milk sold at the grocery store. I buy them and bring them to the old hag making a stew. When she stirs them into the stew, I find it so good that it raises my hit points by 5.

       

I'm going to try, "Old woman! I love this!" the next time Irene cooks something.

        

• As I grind, I poke around various trees and find the occasional 5, 10, or 15 gold pieces. On one screen, there's an "illusory tree" with a chest on the other side. It has 25 gold pieces.

• I upgrade my weapon to a short sword.

   

Otherwise, I grind. I fight chickens, hedgehogs, boars, grizzly bears, and this guy named Farmer John who keeps accusing me of stealing his apples. No matter how many times I kill him, he comes back. I end the day with 84 experience and 88 gold.

   

Day 4

   

I decide it's time to explore new lands. But before paying Neb his $50 extortion money, I decide to try to kill him instead. I accomplish this with 1 hit point to spare, which gives me 5 quest points. The game makes it clear that I didn't actually kill him.

      

Much like the rest of the 1990s, the game really loves, "Whatup."

     

After a quick trip back to town to heal, I continue west along the Tree Elf Highway to the City of Greentree. The game's approach here is interesting. As you approach the city, the view switches to a larger-scale map, with the city spread out over multiple screens.

   

Greentree from the outside . . .

. . . and the inside.

   

In order, I visit:

  

• Ma's Boarding House, where they want 50 gold for a room. That's a bit steep for me.

• A bum out in front of Ma's Boarding House, who tells me to "stay the hell away from the Dark Forest."

• A commoner's house where the resident tells me not to use her restroom. I do, just to spite her, and find a travel pass.

• A church, where I can either make a donation or "donate my negative opinion of religion." I do neither but wonder which action this game will interpret as "good."

• A couple of statues, including one to the hero of the first Red Dragon. 

• The training hall, run by someone named Barak. Since he took over for Turgon, he no longer has students fight champions to level up. Instead, he gives me a potion that causes me to hallucinate a skeleton, which I defeat. I rise to Level 2 and gain 5 hit points, 2 "muscle," and 1 "dodge." (This is the first time I'm hearing about these statistics, which are not reflected on the character sheet.) Barak gloats about his position and insults Turgon. I suspect he's behind the frame job.

       

Barak always laughs with an adverb.

      

• Abdul's Armor has upgrades to a leather vest, chain mail, and plate mail, but the cheapest costs 250, far more than I have.

• The Red Dragon Inn, where the bartender gives me a letter to deliver to Nickabrick in FlagCity for $604. I agree and take it.

   

That'll buy a lot of chicken eggs.

      

• The First Bank of Greentree, where I open an account.

• King Arthur's weapons. The next upgrade is a hand axe for 300 gold.

• A newspaper called the Scribe, where I can place an ad for $10. I assume this is for multiplayer purposes.

    

Those are the only options I have in town. I had hoped to learn more about Turgon's situation.

   

I head north out of town, not sure how much risk I'm taking, as I don't know whether enemy difficulty depends on your own level (as in the first game) or geographic area. There's a pawn shop along the road. On a screen called Fishing Dock, there is indeed a dock, and a suggestion that I could fish there if I had the right items.

   

The battles are harder, but it might be because I leveled up. Tigers, stags, monkeys, wild dogs, angry dwarves, and a hulking woman named Mary periodically send me back to Greentree to heal. I don't make much progress before the bell chimes on the close of the fourth day.

    

Day 5

   

I try to make it farther up the road and am killed by a lost knight. This brings an immediate end to the day.

      

Cut lyrics from West Side Story.

     

Day 6

   

I wake up back in mother's house. I head to the pawn shop and buy 5 healing potions, then go to Jack's Restaurant for the gloworm. There's an interesting graphic accompanying this purchase.

     

Love's sweet voice is calling yonder.

       

The game gives me an option to save the gloworm for later, which I take. 

    

Enemies in this area are easy again, so their difficulty must have to do with geography, at least partly.

   

I stop and talk to Turgon and let him know Barak has his old job. He thinks Barak is at fault for his situation but has nothing else to offer.

   

Inside the cave, my only option is to bite into the gloworm, which does indeed light things up. The cave makes up two screens. I fight multiple bats as I explore and take damage by accidentally running into snakes in a central chamber.

         

Again, the game looks a bit like a roguelike except the entire map was instantly revealed.

      

In the inner chamber, I find an Ancient Flute, 35 gold pieces, and a nest. The game says that whatever occupies the nest must be out.

  

I head back to Greentree. After a few more aborted attempts to make it north, I just hang around the area, grinding. As the day ends, I'm just on the cusp of the next level.

       

6.3% of the game explored!

     

New World isn't a terrible game, but without the multiplayer aspects, it feels like a simple RPG from the early 1980s with puerile text. At this point, I don't know whether there's a main quest or how long it takes if there is, but I'll give it at least a few more hours.

   

Time so far: 3 hours