Interpreter for SSI AD&D games?

[Ze_ro]

This is a bit off-topic, but has anyone worked on reverse engineering the old SSI gold box adventure games like Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades and Pools of Radiance? These were some of my favorite games back in the C64 days (In fact, I still have original boxed versions for the 64), and I'd love to be able to play them under Linux without endless disk swapping.

--Zero

[Armchair_Avatar]

As far as I know, no one's remade these games yet.
The closest thing is Dungeon Craft, an open-source RPG engine:
http://uaf.sourceforge.net/

By the way, the PC versions of these games can be installed on hard disk. No disk swapping for PC users

[Soul]

The PC versions also run under windows just fine, even windows NT/2k/XP. I'm not sure if WINE will run them.

[wjp]

They also run in DOSBox according to dosbox' compatibility page.

[Yttrium Dragon]

I always thought that remaking all the original gold box games (PC) as
Unlimited Adventures Modules would be great, at least for the older
ones without great graphics or sound. (the ones closer to the date
of the release of UA were almost basically created with it already by
the way they look) But it would be way too time consuming, people
would need to own Unlimited Adventures, and it still is a DOS based
program.

Yttrium Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

[Tim]

These games have been made as mods for Neverwinter Nights. Also, the Dragonlance ones have too. I learned this while searching for those damn code wheels for the Pool of Radiance series. Still haven't found them.

[Kennedy]

Hopefully someboy will remake the old gold box games with the Dungeon Craft engine.

[Yttrium Dragon]

How true to the originals are the remakes though? Aren't the code wheels
publicly released/decoded yet? (probably not as Interplay is still selling
the collection...right?) I created a doc on how to recreate the code wheels for the collection because I always used to ruin/lose mine. I never put it on the web though because I think everyone should pay for the games (they are awesome and usually cheap and relatively easy to find for sale, at least were last time I checked), though if the games aren't available for
sale anymore, maybe I should put it up...

[Tim]

Actually, I beleive they are intended to be MP, since NWN doesn't have a party. I don't know how true to the original they are. I'm sure it wasn't too difficult to re-create.

I have them all and I lost all the wheels. So now I can't play them. Feel free to email this doc to me Yttrium... one of my favorite elements by the way. Right after Vanadium.

[Worrow]

Hmmm...the code wheel. I used it for Curse of Azure Bonds until I learned how to hex edit the answer(made them all 'A's):P

[Matoda]

Would be nice to play the old "Ravenloft" or "Forgotten Realms' Menzoberrenzan." Seems like a difficult project, and I am not a coder so I will shut up now.

[Tim]

I think most of these games do run on modern systems, albeit at warp speed. There is a DOS emulator on Sourceforge somewhere. DOSBox.

[Neutronium Dragon]

The "Pool of Radiance" NWN module, or at least, the one in the IGN NWVault hall of fame, is a pretty good recreation of the old games. It's not a carbon copy - the maps have necessarily different layouts, for example, but if you played the original game then you'll still find things pretty much where you expect them to be.

There are one or two minor, extra quests that weren't in the computer game (but which were suggested in the P&P module version), as well.

Neutronium Dragon

[Newave]

I have an animated code wheel I made for Curse Of The Azure Bonds and Hillsfar. Im still looking fir the Pools Of Radiance wheels....

[ElDuderino]

Yttrium Dragon,

actually there is a really good Unlimited Adventures remake of Pool of Radiance (no codewheel required btw).
Here's an interview with the designer: http://www.giga.or.at/pub/ua/pc/uanews/ ... -rdyer.htm
You can get the game from: http://frua.rosedragon.org/pc/modules/g/Game39.zip

@Ze ro
I can confirm that the Gold Box games run flawlessly under Linux if you use DOSBox. Get it here, it's free : dosbox.sourceforge.net