USURPER Playable on the demo board
NODE 1 :: USURPER 0.25/WEBANSI · 80x25 · CP437

The 1993 door game, on your own web space.

Gang wars, dungeon crawls, kings and gods, and a town full of computer characters who insult your players by name.

Usurper 0.25/Web puts the whole thing on ordinary shared hosting. Anyone with a browser can play. Everyone shares one world.

Hotkeys work here too. Just press the letter.

The game

“Kicking fantasy.”

That's the original README's own summary. Hard to beat. Usurper is a multi-player role-playing game from the BBS days. You roll a character. A human paladin, maybe, or a mutant assassin. Then you fight your way down the dungeon one level at a time.

Up in town there are gangs to join, a crown to take, gods to serve or become, and a family to raise if you live long enough. Other players are out there with you in real time. So are the characters the game runs itself. They marry and feud, and their names turn up in the paper right next to yours.

Usurper screenshot: Main Street. Every shop in town, and most of the trouble, starts here.
Main Street. Every shop in town, and most of the trouble, starts here.
Usurper screenshot: The status sheet. WeaponPower now shows the number the game actually fights with.
The status sheet. WeaponPower now shows the number the game actually fights with.
Usurper screenshot: Dungeon level 7. A monk sells you potions. Then the lions show up.
Dungeon level 7. A monk sells you potions. Then the lions show up.
Usurper screenshot: Reese the elf. Ask him for help now and he picks the best piece you can afford.
Reese the elf. Ask him for help now and he picks the best piece you can afford.
Usurper screenshot: The realm. An asterisk marks a character the game runs itself.
The realm. An asterisk marks a character the game runs itself.
Usurper screenshot: The title screen. Here it is as 0.25/ATDT, the door version, on the demo board.
The title screen. Here it is as 0.25/ATDT, the door version, on the demo board.

Fair warning. It's a 1993 game with a 1993 sense of humor. There are drugs and a brothel in town, and some of the family storylines go darker than you'd expect. It's all kept the way the author wrote it.

Two ways to run it

Your own realm, or a door on your board.

Both are the same game, built from the same PHP. One stands on its own. The other plugs into ATDT.

▓▒░

0.25/Web

No BBS required.

Your own Usurper on the web space you already pay for. Upload a folder and click through the installer. Then send people the link. Everyone who opens it plays in the same realm, at the same time.

  • SQLite in one click, or MySQL if you prefer
  • Fully multi-user, in any browser
  • All 373 repairs included
  • GPL, with the full source in the download

Coming soon · download

▚▚▚

0.25/ATDT

The same game as a native door.

For SysOps running ATDT. Usurper sits on your menus beside the other doors and runs natively, with nothing DOS on your server. Your callers walk in under their own handles.

  • Playable right now on the ATDT demo board
  • Built from the same PHP as 0.25/Web
  • All 373 repairs included
  • Download coming soon to the door library

Playable now · call the demo board · door library

Want the DOS original? The Unofficial Usurper Homepage has every release from 0.20e to 0.24, and ATDT's DOS door guide shows how to run it on a board.

Download

Four steps, about two minutes.

The installer does the fiddly parts. You answer a few questions and the realm is live.

01

Upload the folder

Put the contents of the download in your web space. The root and a subfolder both work.

02

Open it in a browser

The installer checks your server first, and tells you plainly about anything your host is missing.

03

Pick a database

SQLite takes one click and suits almost everyone. MySQL is there if you'd rather use it.

04

Name your realm

Then send people the link. That's the whole job.

Usurper 0.25/Web is free software under the GNU GPL, like the original. The download carries the full PHP source, cross-referenced to the Pascal it came from.

Coming soon Until then, the door version is playable on the ATDT demo board.
Version0.25/Web
RequiresPHP 8.1 or newer
DatabaseSQLite or MySQL
HostingAny writable web directory
LicenseGNU GPL, source included

What 0.25 repairs

373 repairs. The balance stays the author's.

0.25 follows the original Pascal source routine by routine. Where the old code plainly didn't do what it was written to do, the port now does it. The prices and the odds were left alone on purpose.

Weapon and armour power printed eleven times too large

NowIt prints the numbers the game actually fights with.

The Blue Bottle sold maximum mana by the glass

NowThe permanent rise comes with the first bottle you drink. After that, a bottle refills your mana.

One guard defended the whole castle

NowEvery guard on duty must be beaten, one after another, before you reach the royal bedroom.

Thirty-two monsters were immune to every spell

NowNo resistance now means the spell always lands.

Read all 373 repairs

History

From 1993 to now.

Jakob Dangarden wrote Usurper in 1993, in the years when Legend of the Red Dragon ruled the door menus. It was one of the few doors where players fought side by side in real time.

He released his last version, 0.20e, in 2009, and put the source out under the GPL with it. Rick Parrish and Dan Zingaro carried it on to 0.24 in 2015.

Nobody shipped a release after that. This is the next one.

Read the history