BOSS
| BOSS | |
|---|---|
| Stable game | |
| Developer | Robert Gulledge, Jason Black |
| Theme | Science Fiction |
| Influences | Moria |
| Released | Nov 1990 (1.0) |
| Updated | 10 Sep 2024 (3.1) |
| Licensing | Moria License |
| P. Language | Pascal, Free Pascal |
| Platforms | DEC VAX mainframes running VMS, Linux, Windows, macOS Classic, and macOS X |
| Interface | Monochrome ASCII |
| Game Length | |
| (Internet Archive) Official site of BOSS | |
From BOSS FAQ: Like moria, the object is to become a powerful character who defeats the mega-monster at the end of the game. In BOSS, that monster is the Boss, a mean, rotten, disgusting and vile mafia figure who's out to control the world. To do this you must travel far in search of his hide-out deep under the sewers of New York City, battle terrible alien creatures, and survive against almost impossible odds along the way.
BOSS features three races: humans, Jarwangians, and Daysians. Jarwangians are good nice aliens. Daysians are mean bad ones. Available classer are: Wrestler, Scientist, Guru, Ninja, Soldier, Wanderer, Con-Artist, Thief. Game has rather forgiving time limit.
Unique or rare features
- Computer equipment slot,
- Potion mixing,
- Weapons of kill scum,
- Monsters giving negative experience,
- Varied and weird valuable types: nickels, arcade tokens, dimes, blank disks, postage stamps, loose change, bubble gum, old comic books, silicon chips, chic jewellery, digital watches, car stereos, illegal drugs, uncut diamonds, stock certificates, alien crystals ...
Versions and platforms
BOSS was forked from VMS Moria 5.0. Then development was continued up to version 2.5. In FAQ posted to rec.games.roguelike.moria it was promised a C port would be released soon but it never happened. For 2010 ARRP Michal Bielinski took the sources and ported them to Linux and Windows. BOSS was ported to macOS Classic by Mark Vesterbacka as macBOSS 1.0 (beta), released on 12 October 1993.
A major re-write of BOSS by Richard Drysdall, version 3.0, was released for Windows, Linux, and macOS X, on 16 March 2024. The current version is 3.1.