Messages

[Fate of Atlantis]

While I very much like action games as well as adventure ones, I've never been too fond of action sequences in adventure games. Even when they're done well and serve as alternative paths (as in Fate of Atlantis, in which you never had to fight if you didn't want to) or as a special type of atmospheric puzzle (like Full Throttle, in which most fights could be won with a single hit, with the right weapon) they seem kinda tacked on to me.
Combat in general is fine, though. I just think that turn-based, menu-driven (like many Japanese RPGs use, for example) approach works better in most (conventional, slow-paced) adventure games in general, because most puzzles are also not timed and require you more to think well than to act fast. Adventures in the Galaxy of... used a system like that for spaceship combat, but I found it to be a bit too simplistic.

Of course, if you player character is constantly chased by a homicidal maniac and the player's forced always to be on guard and react quickly to get away with his life, then, of course, a fast-paced action-driven combat system might be a more "organical" fit for your game.

Also in a game with direct (cursor-based) control, environmental hazards and combat that's at least as prominent as the exploration/puzzle solving part (i.e. an action-adventure, like BG&E) also seems to be more suited to action combat. I also can't really imagine SC2/UQM, one of my all-time favorites, with a different, or without a, combat system.

Something that might also work in a classical point & click adventure, because it's halfway between tactical and action-based combat would be a real-time strategy component, which has the additional benefit of probably having a very similar, icon-based interface that integrates nicely with the rest of the game. Dune might have done something along those lines, but my memory's a bit fuzzy. voh (or somebody else that remembers), if you're reading this, could you give us a quick synopsis of Dune's strategy part?

Regarding the document, does a game have to fulfill all of the bullet points of a category to be rated accordingly or just a majority or all except one or something? If it's the former, I'm hard pressed to name even one game that would qualify for four cups. Innovative interface? Innovative graphics?

Could any InstaGame/RON/Ben Jordan title get more than one cup, as they all use some graphics that weren't originally made for the game in question?

Even for three or four cups you can't require a game to be more than "virtually bug-free". Testing can only show the presence, but not the absence of bugs and all non-trivial pieces of software (other than TeX) are going to have bugs (even AGS).

The guy in the first screenshot looks a lot like (the oddly chubby) Duncan in Cryo's Dune adventure game, so I assume that's him. (It could also be Moneo, though.)

Sorry for going off-topic, but after seeing that screenshot, somehow, all I can think of is a Babylon 5 adventure game...

Back on topic: The game sounds very interesting, but also quite ambitious for a first project, hopefully, not overly so. I'm looking forward to it.

My friend sweared to god that he made a psi ball. I never saw him lying.

He probably really believes he did. Besides the frauds, there are a lot of people of actually believe they have powers of some kind, but usually it's just a delusion. For example, most people who apply for prizes like the million dollars of the JREF aren't frauds (because they know they don't have a chance under controlled conditions), but people who honestly believe they can do what they claim, but fail to do so under controlled conditions (like double blind tests) and are genuinely shocked when their powers don't work.

Unless of course, James Randi himself is the greatest psychic in the world and he wants to keep it that way and not let the knowledge of psychic powers spread, so he uses his, probably considerable, powers to sabotage the demonstrations of other people with real, but less developed, psychic powers to make it seem that they don't have any such powers whatsoever.

[The Soviet Union Strikes Again!]

About the timeline: that's really a cut down one, Anym. I have to check if the Grundislav games are really that unessential. Also, while Purity Of The Surf wasn't referenced it had much story development (much like Soviet Union Strikes Again!, which introduced Thakbor, his mom, Mr. Namyah...).
So, Purity and Union should be included.
Edit: Oh, and I would be more for IISpy instead of Dead Man's Political Party.
Doesn't Pirate Postman play at one day of Dead Man's Political Party?

Thakbor, his mum and Mr. Namyah are quite negligible characters IMHO (even though Thakbor was among the very first dozen characters to be created) and they alone don't provide a compelling reason to include The Soviet Union Strikes Again! especially if we also consider Purity of the Surf (which features Thakbor much more prominently) for inclusion. Purity of the Surf was also a hard game not to include and I guess you could replace III Spy with it, but ultimately, it didn't provide many plot hooks and all the character development (especially Josh, Thakbor and Knoffel) wasn't picked up much either, so ultimately, because I wanted the list to be as short as possible I decided against it.

While Hooky McPegleg, Pirate Postman also takes places during the period of Davy's death and the mayoral election, I felt it didn't deal with Davy's death that nicely, because Hooky, didn't really know Davy and because the game features another character dressing up as Davy. Also, the game is strongly linked to Lost Treasure of RON, so including one, would almost inevitably mean including the other, which was one more argument (to minimize the number of games) of opting for a single game rather than those two, because, if taken together, they are almost stand-alone, not unlike Purity of the Surf.

I never announced my game on the Ron forum because I didn't want to pressurise myself by such an announcement. I did consider checking my plot ideas, but since my plot is closed in itself and doesn't change any of the major characters I thought I better keep quiet, so as not to spoil anything, or to raise hopes for something which is never released.

It's good to hear that there are also games "secretly" in development. Even if your plot is self-contained, you might want to make a quick post about it though, just in case somebody else makes changes to a character or location or somebody introduces a character very similar to one you are going to introduce, so that ideally, they could me merged into one character, so that there aren't too many "duplicates".

Wouldn't it be a good idea, wouldn't it be possible to either:
-Get ALL of the RON AGS games on the AGS game pages, giving all titles the RON prefix (=the option I'd favor as the games can then all be rated using the better AGS rating system, on a place where more people go than the RON site (even tho that site is going to be revamped))
-Advertise with a selection of the best games (the suggested 'essentials')

While I'm against a tighter integration of the RON/AGS site/forums, I like the idea of having all the AGS RON games in the AGS database and see nothing wrong with. It might even give the games some more exposure. I'm a bit skeptical about adopting the rating system, though, as it wouldn't be inclusive of all the games. Of course, one might argue that all the best games are AGS anyway and the rest should just go unrated, and be sorted at the bottom of a "sort by ratings" list, but I'd find that rather unfair (especially for non-AGS games that are good, like The Sorcerer's Appraisal).

Note that "essential" isn't the same as "best" and if I were to compile a list of the ten "best" games it would be vastly different from my list of "essential" games.

I think there is one game in particular which should be used as a sort of flagship. It's 'The Postman Only Dies Once'. It features a classic RON art style (people may easily get the idea that they could do that too, as opposed to something like III Spy or the Phantom Inheritance), good puzzles, a very nice story and lots of good jokes... but most of all it features enough different 'classic' locations to make for an 'essential' RON introduction and even above that it has a great introduction into many characters. You don't need to know that Mika arrived in RON in I Spy in order to understand her character in the Postman. You don't need to know who Davy is and his whole death thing isn't even featured in the game; the character is presented in a very clear way. A lot of things are really good about the game, I think it clearly shows what you could do with AGS and RON, I think many people will agree with me on the good quality of this particular game.

It may even be a nice idea to nick the recommendations thing from Home of the Underdogs, where three similar ('if you like this you may also like') games are given. I sure discovered lots of stuff via the Underdogs' pages... including RON! Okay so maybe incorporating this on the RON site won't work at all with so many similar games... but in any case, it never hurts to look at good & working examples!

That gives me an idea: Choose-Your-Own-Reality! (provisional title)

The Reality Chamber of Commerce welcomes you to our beautiful town of Reality-On-The-Norm. Make yourself at home! To familiarize yourself with our town, we respectfully suggest you start at 0 and then continue from there as you wish. Enjoy your stay!

0:
Play THE POSTMAN ONLY DIES ONCE and then,
     if you want to know why a zombie is running for mayor, go to 1,
     if you want to know how Death came to live in Reality, go to 10,
     if you want to know how Mika came to live in Reality, go to 5
     if you want to know more how the sheriff lost his leg, go to 4,
     if you want to know how the drinks got swapped with the nuclear weapons, go to 7,
     if you want to know what kind of packages Davy sends to Abu Dhabi, go to 3,
     if you want to know who is going to become the new postman, go to 14,
     if you want to play another game by the same author, go to 41,
     otherwise, go to 12.

1:
Play LUNCHTIME OF THE DAMNED and then,
     if you want to know how Davy got his start as a magician, go to 24,
     if you want to play another game as Davy, go to 3,
     if you want to play a game as Elandra, go to 8,
     if you want to get rid of Davy, go to 2,
     otherwise go to 5.

2:
Play VENGEANCE OF THE CHICKEN and then,
     if you want to bring the chicken to justice, go to 4,
     otherwise go to 5.

3:
Play THE SOVIET UNION STRIKES AGAIN and then,
     if you want to play another game as Davy, go to 1,
     otherwise go to 5.

4:
Play FOWL PLAY and then,
     if you want to know how the chicken got the gun, go to 2,
     go to 5.

5:
Play I SPY and then,
     if you want to know what Davy and Elandra did in the meantime, go to 8,
     if you want to know how Bill Cosby died, go to 1,
     if you want to know how the chicken got the gun, go to 2,
     otherwise go to 10.

7:
Play RETURN OF DEE VIE ESS and then,
     go to 69.

8:
Play BLAST OFF and then,
     go to 5.

10:
Play THE REPOSSESSOR and then,
     if you want to know why a zombie is running for mayor, go to 1,
     if you want to know how the chicken got the gun, go to 2,
     otherwise, go to 13.

12:
Play DAVY JONES C'EST MORT and then,
     go to 23.

14:
Play THE LOST TREASURE OF RON and then,
     go to 18.

(...)

The Reality Chamber of Commerce is proud to be associated with Yahtzeebrand, Cloudy Davy Real Estate, Linders of RON, Grundy's market, Scid's bar, Chez Chef and Dominatrix Pizza.

[Edge of Reality]

You know, I don't care that much about the graphics. And I agree that other things are more urgent.
But it's part of the plan to attract more people. I haven't weighed the importance of the tasks.

Yeah, but I don't think it should be part of the plan at all. If people are turned off by simple, but clean low resolution graphics, they probably won't be attracted by elaborate low resolution graphics either. Also, people are going to be turned off by the graphics in the games, not the graphics on the resource page. Over time, the overall graphics quality in the resource packs (if not necessarily in the games themselves) has steadily improved and if you manage to attract people, I think it will continue to do so (quasi by itself). If anything, graphics tutorials should be made.

Well, I have to admit that I played them, hm, two years ago, but as far as I can remember I thought that these were the least enjoyable ones (together with the Surreal Dreams).
Well, you could say that there were no bugs, no showstoppers, the story was consistent with the canon and that's enough for inclusion.
But I think that developers should get pushed to try it better. For example, they could be asked to add more hotspot descriptions, to fix the grammar (well, that would probably need the help from a native speaker) and the perspective of the backgrounds.
Often there's nothing totally wrong, but some fine-tuning can make the difference between a somehow okay and really good game.

I've seen much worse, but I agree with you. Maybe people shouldn't be able to "release" a game on the RON forums for immediate inclusion on the site, but rather release it for public beta testing there and only after that it would get added. Of course, that leaves the tricky matter of "approving" games.

That's an oversimplification. For example, nobody picked up the story about the Surrealist (okay, except this eye-torturing game "Surreality"). Josh Beachcomber was never seen again after Purity of the Surf.

No, I think the idea of that self-regulation isn't that everything from good games is going to get picked up, rather it's that few things from bad games will get picked up again. Take the all the characters and locations from Edge of Reality for example. If things from a bad game are picked up again and again, it's probably because somebody picked it up in a good game sometime.

And, of course, John Steel is an interesting character, but "Paranormal Investigator" wasn't really great.

That was my point exactly - although the game was not good, it gave birth to an interesting character.

No, Jhon Steel was an empty shell, that was only made into an interesting character later on (by other people). And if you see future appearances of Knoffel, it's probably because of his appearance (which was also different in character than what we have seen of him so far) in Purity of the Surf rather than because of the games he featured as player character.

What would be the really important stuff? Which games should be presented as the main games? What will make up the introduction to RON?

The bare essentials, as few as possible, according to me, first draft, subject to change:

• I Spy introduces Mika Huy and, as she is new in town, it also re-introduces most other early characters and it summarizes the events of Lunchtime of the Damned nicely.
  
• The Repossessor introduces Death who's presence has to be explained somehow and advances the mayoral campaign subplot.
  
• The First Stitch introduces Greyson and Simon Jones, recapitulates most things that have happened so far and serves as introduction to the tapestry subplot.
  
• The Postman Only dies Once introduces Max Griff, fleshes out Mika Huy, features some minor characters not yet seen in the above games, advances the mayoral campaign further and has Phil Nihilist drink nuclear waste which hints as the superhero subplot.
  
• Davy Jones C'est Mort features the death of a character, or maybe it doesn't, and shows that RON games can be of a different style than the above games.
  
• The Universal Equalizer makes clear that said character really is dead without revealing how he really did die, so that there's no ambiguity about whether he die, only about how he died.
  
• A game that established that Michael Gower has been in fact elected mayor and that takes place during the time that Davy Jones is dead, probably either I Spy 2 or Dead Man's Political Party, but not both.
  
• Davy Jones is Back resurrects a character.
  
• Cabbages & Kings introduces Melt, Drake and a couple of other characters and features some more not yet seen in the above games and serves as introduction to the kittens subplot.
  
• III Spy fleshes out some more characters and features some more characters not yet seen in the above games, has Gower run for office again and provides a quality standard to aspire to.
  

As much as I like them, I couldn't bring myself to include any of Grundislav's games because they didn't have enough of an impact and the tapestry and kittens are still incomplete and haven't made much of an impact yet either, so I just provided "hooks" for them. On the other hand, I also didn't want to leave out Davy Jones C'est Mort, because I do find it essential.

Thanks a lot. I could have sworn I did look there. Must have been blind... 8)

[Last Clown Standing]

I'm looking for Creed Malay's Last Clown Standing (MAGS/02/2004).

[Lunchtime of the Damned]

better graphics (nice for the eye, attracts more people. There has been done some work on it - see the sprites by Wogoat)

Nice, but by no means necessary IMHO and it shouldn't be a priority.

better quality control before inclusion in the RON catalogue (fixing inconsistencies, checking playability; production quality might also play a role (MI5 Bob or The Spoons were unacceptable in my opinion))

Unacceptable how? Those two games didn't strike me as especially bad. Sure, they aren't cream of the crop, but the puzzles have a sense of logic, the games don't have any obvious bugs and they aren't inconsistent with the rest of the series. Are the graphics not good enough? Do they introduce too many new characters and locations? And compared to what? I think they'd probably compare favorably to such "standard" titles like Lunchtime of the Damned or Vengeance of the Chicken.

Take the AGS game page and look at the different folders there. Non-adventure games are moved to a different folder there as well.
You may put five out of every eight games in the 'third folder' but that would make such an unorganised bulk again. If people start playing through that they still fall into an endless junkyard, is what I think.

Well, it's Adventure Game Studio, so people expect adventures, so putting non-adventures in a different category seems reasonable. RON on the other hand is a shared universe where the games can be anything they like. Sure, the first two categories would probably be made up entirely by adventure games made with AGS, but that shouldn't discourage anybody from writing RON interactive fiction in TADS (as I think it would if other genres or engines were "ghettoed" away).

And is the problem really that there are many bad games? I thought the problem was that people have to wade through piles of the bad games to get to the good ones. If the games are categorized into "everything you need to know" and "everything you don't need to know might want to play anyway", is it really a problem if the "third" category is an "unorganised bulk"? Especially if it's labeled "collector's only" or something along those lines. Newbies wouldn't immediately exposed to some of the "worse" games anymore. I would expect people to play the first two categories first, so anybody who then wants to play through all of the games in the third one as well, probably is already intrigued enough not to be scared away by what he sees there. A (new and improved) rating system, the timeline, the name of the games' authors and references from other games would be enough "order" IMHO.

You could do it with three folders, have the essential stuff and the good stuff and then move all the other games with a certain low rating in the third folder. But I think it would be similar to sweeping the trash under the rug. It's still there and it's still a mess.

I'm not even suggesting sweeping it under the rug (away from sight), just move it to a back room (still visible, just further away). But what would be the alternative? Purging everything from the database based upon some subjective criteria? Wouldn't it still be a mess even if it was categorized further? And if you really want more categories they should be based solely upon the games' content, not the author or genre. For example, you might want to have something like "meta-games" which could house Davy Jones Spellbook and the quiz games (but not the arcade games) or something like "dream sequences" (which could house many of Tobias' games, but not all of them and also games not made by him).

Looks like I'm more on the conservative side regarding quality control in RON (which means liberal quality control). I very much agree with what Rui said:

Overall, the game makers have been making their own quality control, haven't they? Picking up on what was good and leaving behind what was bad - most episodes are mostly self-contained, so that's entirely possible.

I think the inaccessibility stems more from the fact that there's no easy way for a newbie to tell a good (or an important or self-contained) game from a bad one (which is something the categories would hopefully take care of) rather than just the existence of bad ones in the database. Maybe that's idealism, too, but it sounds sensible to me.

[Nightwatch]

I don't see the point of a wiki, since that all can be handled on the RoN site itself.

Well, the main advantage of a wiki would be that everybody could help writing and improving game descriptions, plot synopses and character profiles rather than just the admins, which are doing a fine job, but are probably busy enough as it is. But I admit that currently the wiki doesn't even provide the basic functionality of the current RON site and that's making it quite unappealing (to me at least).

Having now played all of the RON games, I can confirm that all the RON games ran fine, even without compatibility setting, under Windows XP for me (well, except Nightwatch, that is). If that isn't the case for other people, it might be possible to repackage most of those games with an appropriate ACWIN.EXE. I'm also (albeit slowly) writing walkthroughs for the games that don't seem to have one yet.

Regarding categories, I really don't think there should be more than "essential" (I really wouldn't call it "canon", because almost everything is canon, but there is important canon, like the mayoral election, and less important canon, like a new character arriving in town and I wouldn't think of it as "best of the series" either, it should be as small as possible, but as big as necessary), "not essential, but really good" (note that some of the best games, like A Better Mousetrap should be here rather than in "essential" IMHO) and "neither essential, nor especially good" (see also my previous post) and no further subcategories. I think everything can fit neatly into those categories, including non-AGS and non-adventure games which shouldn't be treated any different IMHO. I see no reason to treat games by a specific author any different either. If you want further granularity, then you should probably use tags in addition to the categories (non-adventure game, works as a standalone game, dream game,...) rather than have an intricate hierarchy of categories.

Davy Jones C'est Mort would be an "essential" game in my book, but I guess that's open to discussion. While the question about his death should probably stay in the FAQ, it might be a good idea not to name it explicitly if you don't want people to get a wrong first impression.

The characters also should be divided into important and unimportant ones. This might even be done automatically by counting their number of appearances. And if the game pages start listing references to other games, then this system might even be extended to games themselves as well (again, see also my previous post).

<EDIT 1>

When does a game get referenced? Probably not when one of its characters gets featured (I mean, every game featuring Mika would reference ISpy and everyone featuring Davy Lunchtime Of The Damned...)
I'm sorry, I'm not sure how this could work.

Actually, that's just how I imagine it. That way the people who make the games basically decide what carries how much weight in the canon. Nearly every game features Mika, which makes I Spy quite important. On the other hand, few people used Knoffel, indicating that Intergalactic Life was less "embraced" by the community. I'm not sure if it would work, but I thing it just might and at the very least it would be interesting to look at.
</EDIT>

Regarding demos, I agree they should be removed from the games page, but not from the entire RON page. There should still be a demo section somewhere. For example, the Without a Prayer demo is funnier and arguably has more gameplay than many of the "proper" games. I seem to remember a "Games in production" section from an older version of the RON site, featuring, among other things, screenshots for Descension. However, the only demo on the games page, that I can think of at the moment is the one for Time Out (which should be removed from there). Edge of Reality, while labeled as demo is more properly classified as part 1 in a series that didn't get finished IMHO. If you want to remove it anyway, what about the Melt & Drake games, which are also pending closure?

I always regarded the timeline more as a developers resource than as a playing guide and I always appreciated the all-inclusive approach, so I'm a bit skeptical about removing stuff from it. If you don't want it to scare newbies away, I think it would be better to keep it out of their sight than to cripple it. Newbies should get a big START HERE link pointing to the essential games category, probably already ordered by timeline.

I also agree that the ratings system needs an overhaul. The highest rated game is quite bad IMHO and the lowest rated game has a score lower than 1 that should be impossible in the employed rating scheme.

I also want reiterate one more point from my previous post, that I don't think tighter integration with the AGS site or the AGS engine is the way to go:

Rather than integrating RON more closely with the AGS site and forums, I think an effort should be made to try to reach other game making communities. I think most people here are at least remotely aware that RON exists, even if it's just because they wanted to check out the other games from the guy who made the Trilby-/Blackwell-/Ben-Jordan-/Whatever-games, but I guess it's pretty obscure anywhere else. I'm not familiar with other game development communities and I'm not even sure if they exist, but I think it might worth a try. I'm not familiar with Maniac Mansion Mania either, but noticed that they have Visionaire and PaC-DK (something I hadn't even heard about before) templates in addition to an AGS and character sprites in .PNG-format and not just as .CHA-files. The reaching out should probably wait until the issues of the intimidating large amount of games in general and relatively large amount of games with questionable quality have been tackled, though, in order not to immediately scare away anybody who decies to check RON out.

<EDIT 2>
I think RON has more in common with a soap opera than with a sitcom. Things do change over time and if you watch/play a single episode at random you can't expect to get everything. That's probably not a good thing, but that's the way it is and so Lost or Desperate Housewives would probably better analogies than The Simpsons.
</EDIT>

So do they sue me if I use the fonts somewhere?

nope not t all there free

Do you mean "nope, not at all, they're free" or "nope, not all the fonts there are free"?

I assume you meant to say the former and in that case what you said is simply not true:

Are all fonts free of charge ?

The fonts presented on this website are their authors' property, and are either freeware, shareware, demo versions or public domain. The licence mentioned above the download button is just an indication. Please look at the readme-files in the zips or check the indicated author's website for details, and contact him if in doubt. If no author/licence is indicated that's because we don't have information, that doesn't mean it's free.

Mahoujin Guru Guru?

And you can edit the images a little and create your own character once you have the original one  using it as a model.

But isn't CHA a rather bad format if you want to modify a character? You'd have to export every single frame separately and by hand, wouldn't you?

But do we want to encourage people to (ab)use copyrighted characters?

No offense, but shouldn't this discussion take place (or at least continue) in the already existing (and twice linked to) thread on the subject? What's the point of having a "Popular Thread" about a subject if it isn't the "definite thread"?

[modified classic fairy tale]

Main story or a side plot has to be a modified classic fairy tale.

Would transplanting a fairy tale to a different setting (e.g. science fiction or the ever popular pirates era) or re-telling it from a different POV (e.g. Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples be sufficient "modifications"?

Well, I don't know what the consensus is, but here are my opinions:

I think the RON resource packs exist for making RON games (which all take place in a shared universe), so I don't think you should use them in a non-RON game and using them would probably lower my opinion of your game in the same way as if you had ripped graphics from a LucasArts or Sierra game. (And I'm not actually sure if you're technically allowed to use them in non-RON projects at all.)

Now Insta-Game is a totally different matter. It was created with the explicit purpose of allowing people lacking the time or the skills to create nice graphics to make a nice-looking game anyway and it won't demean your game in the least, at least in my eyes, if you decide to use those graphics instead of making your own.

[Touché]

You might want to check out this thread at the Popular threads board.

Personally, I'm fine with any "reasonable" (SCUMM bar, verb coin, context-senstive one-lick,...) GUI. Two things that mildly bother me in many AGS games is a lack of reaction when going over a hotspot with the mouse (like the Sierra games, but unlike the LucasArts, Revolution or Adventure Soft ones) and the use of large mouse cursors without a clear indication with which pixel to aim with (like many, but not all, of the Sierra games).

Perhaps the ideal GUI for me would be a verbcoin that altered dependent upon context. Like the interface in Return to Zork, but more effectively realised.

Like the ones in Touché or Lure of the Temptress?

Addendum: Hehe, re-reading the thread I linked to, I just realised that Ali already stated his (low) opinion of the Lure of the Temptress one more than two years ago.

No problem. Thanks for trying! 8)

Maybe I won't be playing each and every RON game, then. I'll try to get in touch with the game's author, though, just in case.

Addendum: The five-year-old rossnorton@mweb.co.za e-mail-address from the readme.txt isn't active anymore. If anyone has another address to reach "Ross Norton", I'd be glad to hear it.

[The Repossesor]

Can VDMSound really help with getting games to run? I always thought that it only added sound and joystick support to games that already ran from Windows (albeit without sound).

Anyway, I tried it and still only got a dark screen, but this time a dark screen with music, which I found quite puzzling, but ultimately didn't get me closer to playing it.

Thanks anyway!

I've had lots of problems trying to get AGS to work in DOSBox.

Really? Well, I haven't tried many games (as I hardly ever had any problems getting AGS games to run directly from Windows), but when I tried The Repossesor, another version 2.21 DOS game, in DOSBox 0.70 it worked without problems (after putting CWSDMPI.EXE in the same directory), but then, I can also play The Repossesor just fine from Windows (even with sound if I run it with VDMSound).