Red Flags / boomer shooter / released

Red Flags:Open the Line

Adapted from the novel Red Flags

The novel becomes the machine.

Red Flags: Open the Line turns the novel Red Flags into a standalone boomer shooter: twenty-one maps across five episodes, eight weapons, bosses and 87 secrets. The book’s characters, places, violence and institutional absurdity become combat spaces, weapons, enemies and systems.

An ordinary traveler walks out of a white showcase and into a transmission that keeps getting worse.

Open the line on itch.io ↗Watch the trailer ↓The source novel →

Status: Released · version 1.2.1
Genre: First-person shooter
Campaign: 21 maps · 5 episodes
Platform: Windows 10 / 11 · 64-bit
Languages: English · French
Engine: UZDoom
Source: Red Flags (novel)

First-person view in a nightclub with a purple and black checkered floor: a mirror ball hangs at the centre of spirals of burning moths and flames, a neon sign reads Papillons de Minuit and bottles line the bar on the left; the Compliance shotgun in a gloved hand, health 100 and ammunition 53 in the lower corners — Real in-engine capture of version 1.2.1, staged — MAP19, Papillons de Minuit: the mirror ball and the fire spirals of the club.

Official trailer / version 1.2.1

The new trailer.

The official trailer of version 1.2.1: footage captured in the game's engine, staged like the captures below, cut to the game's main theme.

Source / YouTubeID 2yyrUmJ4X30

Red Flags: Open the Line — official trailer Open original video on YouTube ↗

Open the line on itch.io ↗

Open the line

A transmission that keeps getting worse.

The spaces are wrong, the systems are still running, and every layer of the machine insists that the disaster is procedure. Along the line, the novel’s voices surface one by one: Élise and Stefano, Louve, Viktor Ardent, Mara.

The campaign moves from administrative nightmare to industrial and mechanical apocalypse: offices, seed rooms, hospitals, rusted districts, motels, cabarets and fortress machinery, each rebuilt as a place to fight through rather than a reference to recognise.

Real in-engine capture of version 1.2.1, staged — MAP02, Customer Cycle: a Retail Mannequin shatters in the Advertising Ring.

A dark corridor striped with red and cyan neon lines: a red flare bursts in a shower of sparks and glass just ahead, a door marked RESET in the distance; the Red Beacon launcher, topped by a red warning lamp, in hand — Real in-engine capture of version 1.2.1, staged — MAP05, Seed Room: a Red Beacon flare bursts in the neon corridor.

Two pale skeletal figures with blank white faces and red-lit veins run through a dark hall under floating red crystals, a third further back; the Compliance shotgun in hand — Real in-engine capture of version 1.2.1, staged — MAP08, DeepCicada: two Utilisateurs ∅ under the red crystals.

Combat

Eight weapons. No safe distance.

Eight weapons carry the campaign, from the 404 pistol to the Red Beacon: Compliance, Proxy, Rust Eater, Seed Driver and the others each have their ammunition and their work. Fast classic movement keeps the pressure on.

Bosses, swarms and set pieces mark the episodes. Four hostility levels run from ASSISTED to SIGNAL RED, and gore can be set to full, reduced or off.

A chamber of red brick and riveted metal: a hulking creature made of rust and scrap staggers under fire, sparks and spent shells in the air, a brass urn of cartridges on the left; the Compliance shotgun firing both barrels — Real in-engine capture of version 1.2.1, staged — MAP16, Cathedral of Scrap: a Mangeur de Rouille under Compliance fire.

A dark hall with a patterned carpet and cyan ceiling lights: a figure strapped into a wired chair under a ring of spikes is hit and glows red; the Seed Driver, a gun fed by a hopper of seeds, in the foreground — Real in-engine capture of version 1.2.1, staged — MAP06, Stefano Loop: Stefano Installed hit by the Seed Driver.

A dark concrete room: a screaming man in a bloodied shirt lunges at point-blank range as bullets tear through him in shards of light; the Proxy machine pistol firing, a spent case in the air — Real in-engine capture of version 1.2.1, staged — MAP12, Audit Trail: a correction subject at point-blank range.

A tiled concourse between lowered shutters signed PROPRE and ÉVACUATION, a clock reading H-24:00: a screaming man in a torn jacket lunges forward as bullets hit him, other residents in the background; the Proxy machine pistol firing — Real in-engine capture of version 1.2.1, staged — MAP17, 72 Hours: a Resident in front of the PROPRE and ÉVACUATION shutters.

The campaign

Five episodes to the red country.

Episode I, Red Flags. Episode II, Open the Line. Episode III, 404 Society. Episode IV, Rust Belt of God. Episode V, Red Country. Twenty-one maps, one of them secret, and 87 secrets for those who inspect the cracks.

The last episode leaves the institutions for the road: motels, a gas station, a neon nightclub and a red country at the end of it.

A gas station forecourt with yellow lines and rows of red pumps marked GAS, a Palmetto Inn sign on the left: a wounded man in a beige jacket stands before spirals of fire, other figures behind him; the rusted Rust Eater gun with its hose in hand — Real in-engine capture of version 1.2.1, staged — MAP18, Bed Bugs: an Infesté in front of the gas station.

A parking lot at dusk in front of red and yellow striped buildings: a giant smiling mascot in a sombrero holds up two rockets, a nest of eggs hangs in the air on the left and a spiral of fire turns around a palm tree in the distance; the Proxy machine pistol in both gloved hands — Real in-engine capture of version 1.2.1, staged — MAP21, South of the Border: Pedro, a nest and a spiral on the parking lot.

Cover of the English edition of the field guide.

Field guide / free download

The whole line, map by map.

A complete walkthrough of version 1.2.1: the twenty-one maps by episode, each with a numbered plan and a step-by-step route, the eight weapons, twenty-nine enemies and bosses, and the 87 secrets with a checklist. The plans are drawn from the map data of version 1.2.1 and the figures come from the game's scripts.

English field guide · PDF ↓Guide de terrain en français · PDF ↓

Pages: EN 94 · FR 98
Size: EN 23.5 MB · FR 23.7 MB
Format: PDF · 16:9

Two PDFs in 16:9, made for the screen; they print in landscape. If a door, a count or a message differs from the guide, trust the game.

Red Flags reissue cover: a lone figure in a long coat facing a lit corridor at the far end of a ruined retail hall, red warning banners hanging above the concourse — Cover of the revised edition. A book jacket, not a capture of the playable campaign.

Literary source / revised edition

The book underneath the level geometry.

Red Flags exists first as a manuscript. The revised edition carries the terrain this dossier compiles into maps: the retail floor, the maintenance corridor, the clinic and the false border, written long before any of them became a place you have to survive.

The campaign documented on this page is built from that manuscript and is now publicly released. The book is not an appendix to the software; it is the older machine underneath it.

Open the edition →

Published under Pomegranate Editions. The edition record, and where the book can be obtained, is kept on the Editions page rather than here.

Release state / 14 October 2026

Version 1.2.1. What it contains, and where it stops.

Red Flags: Open the Line 1.2.1 is available on itch.io for Windows. The first public version, 1.0.0, shipped for Windows and Linux; the 1.2 versions rebuilt the game’s look across all twenty-one maps, and 1.2.1 rebuilt its options menu.

This page states what version 1.2.1 contains and where it stops. Each capture names the version it comes from.

In version 1.2.1

A standalone campaign of twenty-one maps across five episodes, one of them secret, with 87 secrets to find.
Eight weapons, bosses and swarms; four hostility levels from ASSISTED to SIGNAL RED; gore full, reduced or off.
New in 1.2: high-definition materials, skies, enemies, pickups and effects on all twenty-one maps; lettered walls rebuilt as signs, shopfronts, plates, consoles and screens; a rebuilt secret map; the same gloves and worn leather jacket across all eight weapons.
A bilingual witness notebook: five pages of context, one per episode.
New in 1.2.1: a readable options menu in five pages, Display, Performance, Sound, Controls and Interface.
English and French, switchable in the options; 16:9, 16:10 and 4:3 displays; Vulkan or OpenGL.
The distribution carries the official, unmodified UZDoom engine and requires no commercial IWAD. Single player and offline: no account, no connection.

Stated limits

Version 1.2.1 is distributed for Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit, only.
The executable is not code-signed: Windows SmartScreen may ask for confirmation at first launch.
Single player only: no multiplayer, no cooperative mode, no online service.
The campaign is an adaptation of the novel, not an illustration of it.
The captures on this page and the trailer are staged in the game’s engine: the player is made invulnerable, holds every weapon and is helped to aim, at SIGNAL RED. Nothing is added or retouched.
Content note: stylized violence, blood and gore (adjustable, or off), disturbing imagery, strong language and political or institutional satire.

Version: 1.2.1 · 14 October 2026
Platform: Windows 10 / 11 · 64-bit
Languages: English · French
Engine: UZDoom 5.0.3
Distribution: itch.io

Connected works

No project stands alone.

The novel is the source. Red Flags 2 continues the cycle; the other released games are the same hand turned toward other material.