The smash hit BBS Door from 1993... that wasn't released until 2023.

A Text-Mode Social RPG for Personal Computer Systems

Freeport is the biggest, most infamous city on the Trantic Seaboard. The only city-state free of monarchs and unelected officials, it has been infested with something arguably even worse - capitalists. The perfect place to make your fortune... or get your throat cut trying.

Venture forth and pick pockets! Avoid the city constabulary! Join guilds! Explore the city! Buy or rent property! Run your own shop! Craft and cook! Hunt the mighty Bloatalope, the dangerous Hellsnark, and the Sharp-Toothed Chargebeast! Sleep in flea-infested beds! Go fishing! Rent overpriced rat-infested houses! Only in the democratic citystate of FREEPORT! (No taxation until 100 gold crowns per week.)

Introduction

Swords of Freeport is a text-mode social RPG in the style of Bulletin Board System door games from back in the '90s. It is part MUD and part BBS Game - but without the need for a BBS. You can play it on your home machine alone, or play/install it on an internet-accessible machine where others can join you - anywhere they have terminal access.

It is heavily inspired by games such as Legend of the Red Dragon, with a certain number of turns per day. Select a profession, join a guild, and make a name for yourself today!

Features include:

* This is subjective, of course. But my mum thinks it's funny.

** That'd be something to brag about to your friends. "Gary," you'd say. "You won't BELIEVE what I hunted last night in a text game I've been addicted to!" Gary would no doubt respond with, "My goodness, Charlene, don't tell me it's a BLOATALOPE you went hunting? That's very impressive. Let me buy you a coffee!"

A screen shot showing hunting in Swords of Freeport. The player encounters a Land-Spitling, sizes it up, and prepares to fight. However, the player fails their initial stealth check and the creature notices them, charging at them and damaging the plauyer.
A depiction of a player's house, showing that they have, amongst other things, a large kitchen, a cannery and a tannery, all in their townhouse. There are options to do things such as checking their money stash, a loot stash, organise their larder or put books on their book shelf.
A player looking for someone whose pocket needs picking. They find a man wearing the stuffy attire of a bank clerk and begin to approach the target, successfully getting a step or two nearer to their goal.
A screen shot showing the player entering Wakefield's Pawn Shop and browsing what is for sale there. The wares on show include everything from a rusty knife to lanterns, fishing rods and a camp stove.
A screen shot showing the player signing up to crew on a fishing trawler. The end of the screen shot shows a tutorial message beginning, as the player has not been out on a trawler yet.
A screen shot showing the player fishing in Swords of Freeport. They cast out their line, and pretty quickly feel a tug. The player is left with the fish 2 metres away, and being given a prompt to eitehr pull the line in or rest a moment.
A screen shot showing a player logging in. The Freeport Public Times newspaper is listed, along with a description of the truly awful tavern the player slept in the previous night.

System Requirements & Tech Specs

Swords of Freeport is coded in raw C++ and uses a little under 3MB of ram for each session a user has open. The game runs in a terminal window, and will require one with standard termcap and ANSI support. The standard macOS terminal and most Linux based terminals have been shown to work correctly with Swords of Freeport.

It is available for the following systems:

Getting & Supporting Swords of Freeport

Swords of Freeport is available exclusively (and without any DRM or digital licensing) over at itch.io. However, due to the unique nature of SFP - that is, that you may well be playing the game on an instance run by someone and have no need to buy the game yourself, it'd be remiss of us now to not put up a tip jar, too, for in case you wanted to throw a few bucks in our direction. *

* Why am I talking in the plural when I am just a lone developer? Well, honestly, I guess because suddenly using the first person while writing this would feel weird. And hey, perhaps it'll be future-proofing things! Maybe I'll end up co-developing the game with someone else in the near future...

Frequently Asked Questions

So the game is multiplayer?

In the strictest technical sense... sort of. Players can see each other's progress via the in-game news board, chat via in-game message boards found in taverns (and other places), and can see when each other is logged in. There is no player vs player mode, and the multiplayer components of the game are presented (as the subtitle of the page suggests) for social reasons.

Can I play it single-player?

Absolutely. In fact if you download it and run the binary, the game will seamlessly kick into single-player mode. Keep in mind however, that the game is very much designed to give the best experience when you are playing with other people on a shared instance.

I want to learn more about the game. Where can I read more about it than just what's on this page?

The game's help file is available online here here.

When I run the executable on Windows (probably 11), it shows some text and stops.

Windows really hates terminal programs. Right click on sfp.exe, go to compatibility, and set the program to run in Compatibility Mode for Windows 7.

Where can I see the latest patch notes?

They are provided in the game folder, viewable when you log in or by reading the markdown file 'help.md' in the data/help directory. However, you can also always view the latest patch notes here.

What kind of support can I expect if I buy this game?

I am a solo developer, and I am working on the project in the spare time I have outside of both a day job and another side project. So I will provide support as I can, but especially if there's a bunch of replies at once... it may take some time.

Does it run in its own server, like a MUD?

No. While that is technically possible in future if the game gets enough attention, this game is very intentionally designed to operate within the basic restrictions and form of a BBS Door. By this I mean that each player runs their own copy of the binary file on a shared computer, with numerous data files acting as drop points for information that needs to be shared between players.

What is it coded in?

C++17. It uses termcap and some ANSI codes, but otherwise uses no other libraries or middleware to make it run on as many systems as possible. It was made mostly on macOS with VS Code & make/clang, but the test instance was run on a Linux From Scratch machine, built using make and the GNU C Compiler.

What different operating systems does it run on, or could it run on?

SFP was build primarily on macOS, with the most testing done on our test server, Grissom, which runs Linux from Scratch on an x86_64 machine. We have done limited testing on linux for arm64 and windows, and limited testing on arm32. If you want to use one of these less tested OSs, reach out and I'll help how I can. If your OS/architecture is not amongst the supported, it's even possible I could make builds for other systems. If it doesn't exist - it's because I don't have such a system to build on. Keep in mind, I am a solo dev, with a small volunteer testing team helping me work out the bugs on a rather complex game.

What are your future plans for additional features and content?

A little up in the air right now as it will depending on a combination of my own personal interest in the project, and the support and interest I get from players.

Who made the game?

Me, Elissa. Numerous people also helped test or otherwise support its development. You can read the credits at the bottom of the game's help file.

Running a Multi-Player Swords of Freeport Instance

While the game can be played as a single player experience on your home system, it is designed to be enjoyed by multiple players on a shared host system, such as a tilde club.

For more information about how to start and run your own SFP instance, feel free to check out the Sysop's Guide, the latest version of which can be found in your game's errata folder, or viewable online here

Please note that SFP is designed to be run on an existing server as a program which is run in userspace, and as such some knowledge of unix system administration is expected. It is NOT, nor is it designed to be, simple spin-up-and-play LAN game with your friends.

Contact/Questions

For questions about Swords of Freeport, whether support, bug reports, business, or creative, please email us at contact (at) swordsoffreeport.com.

Swords of Freeport is © 2023 by Elissa Harris