This is the fifth and final part in a series I’m writing on games that I played so long ago that I’d almost forgotten them.

Back in the day before we were all on the internet, I used to log onto bulletin board systems with a dial-up modem to play door games. I played Usurper, I played Barren Realms Elite, and a number of others that I can’t remember. But the door game that my friends and I always enjoyed most was Falcon’s Eye.

You’d begin the game by naming your country and deciding your race. The list of races you could select from was extensive. There were a few dozen. You could be anything from humans, orcs, or elves to wolves, pixies, or ghouls. Each race had certain advantages and disadvantages. You’d build up your economy, hire workers, construct improvements, and develop magic spells. Then you’d invade other player-made countries and defend your own. It was all on a turn basis, of course. Each real-life 24-hour period was one game year, and you had 12 months (12 turns) to play each day. If you went a day without logging on, you’d fall behind the other countries, so the game became addictive. Tactics got fierce: you could plan raids with friends, and then all log in at 11:45 to play one year, and then at 12:01 to play a second. This way you could each attack a certain country twice, and totally pound the other player.

You can probably still log on and play Falcon’s Eye over telnet if you look hard enough.