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Door Games (doors)

At EOTB, entertainment goes beyond the ordinary. If you access through our BBS, you will discover a varied selection of online and offline games. Many of them are rarities that are difficult to find on the InterNet, allowing you to enjoy a different and enriching gaming experience.

What Exactly is a "Door Game"?

In the 1980s and 1990s, before the widespread adoption of broadband InterNet, BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems) were independent digital islands. Each BBS ran on a primary software package that managed mail, message boards, and file transfers.

However, this base software was highly limited when it came to complex interactive environments. This is where the concept of a Door was born. A Door is an external application that runs outside the core BBS software. When a user launched one of these games, the BBS literally opened a virtual "door": it temporarily suspended its own program and handed over control of the telephone line (and the user's screen) to the game's code.

Without graphical user interfaces or networked 3D graphics cards, the aesthetic of door games was defined by ANSI graphics (the X3.64 standard). Using combinations of escape codes (such as [31m for the color red) and the 256 characters of the MS-DOS code page (which included blocks, lines, and shading textures), developers created stunning visual interfaces, dungeon maps, and colorful health bars.

A Brief History: The Asynchronous Revolution

The origin of door games is deeply tied to a physical limitation of the era: most BBSs only had a single phone line. This meant that only one user could be connected at any given time. How could you build a multiplayer game if no two players could be online simultaneously?

The solution was asynchronous design and daily maintenance cycles:

  • The Daily Turn: Each player had a limited number of moves or "turns" per day (for example, 20 forest fights or 5 hyperspace jumps).

  • Persistent Worlds: Users logged in, performed their actions, attacked other players' castles, or traded commodities, and then logged off.

  • The maintenance event: In the early hours of the morning, the BBS ran automated maintenance. A script processed the accumulated game data: monster health regenerated, kingdom taxes were collected, galactic market prices fluctuated, and damage from nightly raids was calculated. By the next morning, the world had evolved.

Inter-BBS Expansion (FidoNet and Beyond)

With the advent of data distribution networks like FidoNet, door games experienced a massive scale-up. Utilizing data packets exchanged between BBSs overnight, inter-BBS games were born. A user in New York could launch their starfleet to bomb the planet of a user connected to a BBS in Los Angeles or London. The game was no longer just local; it had gone global.

Doors in the 21st Century

Today, technology has replaced modems with Telnet / SSH connections and DOS operating systems with modern Linux or Windows servers. However, thanks to background emulators and virtual com port utilities, the internal mechanism of doors remains exactly the same. Playing a door game today is a direct connection to the roots of online multiplayer gaming culture.

Our Game Catalog

We are currently compiling the definitive list of Door Games that will be available on EOTB. We want to make sure everything runs flawlessly, so please bear with us if this section looks a bit empty right now: we apologize for the inconvenience!

In the meantime, don't miss out: you can already register and log in to the BBS. Connect today to look around, explore the menus, and see what's brewing!