Can anyone help with running the game 'Scratches'?

[elentgirl]

I recently purchased a copy of the game “Scratches”, published by G2 Games and Nuclelosys. This was bought new â€" sealed in its case â€" not second hand.

The game installed on my PC, but when I tried to run it, my computer crashed with a blue screen informing me that Windows had shut itself down to avoid damage. I am using Windows 7. As the game was published in 2007, I tried running it in Compatability Mode for XP, but nothing at all happened when I did this.

I next tried accessing the G2 Games and  Nuclelosys web sites, but neither now exists. I sent an email requesting help to an address provided in the 'read me' text file, but have received no reply or acknowledgement after two weeks. I suspect that the makers no longer exist.

I recently had some trouble with another game that would not run because it had installed in 'Program Files (x86)' directory, and I was advised in that case to install it in my user directory. That solved the problem that time so I tried doing that again, but attempting to run Scratches again caused Windows to crash. I also tried reinstalling it using the option to run the game from the DVD, but that also crashed Windows.

Other than using the DVD as a drinks mat, I'm hoping that someone else in the AGS gaming community may have bought this game and found a solution to the problems I'm encountering.

All helpful suggestions gratefully received.

[Ghost]

A German help forum (AdventureTredd) adresses this and offers the following solution:

1. Sucht im 'Scratches - Director's Cut' Verzeichnis nach der Datei 'scream.cfg'
2. Öffnet die Datei mit dem Windows eigenen Programm Notepad oder Wordpad und sucht nach folgendem Eintrag: Rate 0
3. Ã,,ndert den Eintrag von 0 auf 60
4. Abspeichern
5. Loslegen!

Simply put: Open scream.cfg in the game directory (using NotePad). Find the entry "Rate 0" and change it to Rate 60. Save, run game.

Hope that helps!

__
There are several posts in that thread that hint towards the game not running REALLY GOOD under Win7. In some cases videos do not start, and sound either stutters or goes into random loops. The IDEAL solution would be to use a copy of Win95...

[elentgirl]

Thank you very much.  That seems to have done the trick.  I hope I don't encounter any of the other problems you warned me about!    I do think it strange that games are being sold on Amazon that won't run properly on modern systems.  Once again, many thanks.

[Ghost]

I do think it strange that games are being sold on Amazon that won't run properly on modern systems.

Glad to be of service.

The thing is, those games are old and some people like to collect, so there is a market. They are in some cases true collector's items- maybe not for their "value" but for the joy of owning a physical copy.

[donkeymilk]

A lot of people keep an old computer running win98 or win 95 .
It's perfect for playing old games.

[Snarky]

I do think it strange that games are being sold on Amazon that won't run properly on modern systems.

Glad to be of service.

The thing is, those games are old and some people like to collect, so there is a market. They are in some cases true collector's items- maybe not for their "value" but for the joy of owning a physical copy.

But Scratches isn't a game from the Win9x era; it came out around the same time as Windows Vista. There's really no good excuse for why it shouldn't run on Windows 7.