VOGONS


Life and Death 2

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Reply 20 of 25, by furrykef

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uhh...if I understand correctly, we're not supposed to post abandonware links. We can say the names of sites but we can't link to them.

In any case, I already said that Home of the Underdogs has the original, complete game, which should work under "normal" conditions, it's just nobody has normal conditions. 😀 I doubt the game can be cracked to get around it without crippling it in some way; what we need is either to hook the game into a system that can act like old hardware (VDMSound), or emulate the game (DOSBox, Bochs).

- Kef

Reply 21 of 25, by furrykef

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Heh, I tried the link anyway, even though it wasn't supposed to be posted. Took me a couple mins to find the thing.

Yes, it works in DosBox, but surgery is completely disabled, and yes, digital sound effects are screwed (dunno if it's a problem with the crack or with DosBox, but somehow I think the crack is at least partly responsible). The MIDI works fine, though. I can live without the sound. I can't live without the surgery.

Surgery is the very essence of the game; I suspect the rest of the game was put in not only for realism but to provide "cool-off" time between operations. It's very mundane compared to the surgery. Therefore, this "no surgery" hack is a waste of my time, and probably anybody else's. It's only good for getting to the end as quickly as possible, but what's the fun in that?

- Kef

Reply 22 of 25, by Srecko

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Sorry for linking, I wasn't aware of the rule.
Maybe you should try combining files from both versions
(i.e exe & config.dat from no-surgery version with the rest).
It may be possible to create a complete working game.

And I actually managed to install and get working full version with vdmsound & XP but mouse doesn't work.

Reply 23 of 25, by furrykef

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Srecko wrote:

Maybe you should try combining files from both versions
(i.e exe & config.dat from no-surgery version with the rest).
It may be possible to create a complete working game.

I really doubt it; I'm relatively certain it's the ld2.exe that was cracked to make the game work (and to remove the surgery) in the first place.

And I actually managed to install and get working full version with vdmsound & XP but mouse doesn't work.



How? What were your settings? Did you get any sound?

- Kef

Reply 24 of 25, by furrykef

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Umm...not to be bitchy, but I'm kind of wondering why people are bothering to say "I got it working with VDMSound!" without explaining in the least what they did to get it to work. After all, I already STFW (Searched The @#!* Web), and I've tried various settings to no avail, so it's not like I'm putting no effort into it and therefore not deserving a response. 😀

Not to mention I'm not the only person who would be helped by actually posting a helpful response about it. Again, sorry if I come off sounding cantankerous, but...

- Kef

Reply 25 of 25, by furrykef

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Heh, I know I've posted a bazillion times already, but I made some more progress with Bochs.

The problem was I was using the wrong version of Bochs. I was using a newer, beta version than the current stable release. It turns out that the older version still panics when you do things like use the drill, but it behaves much better when the panic occurs: you can select "alwayscont" (always continue when panic occurs). Note that the Bochs team doesn't recommend doing this, because panics are supposed to be fatal, so don't do this on a hard disk image you care about.

NOTE: if this panic first happens when you're drilling into the patient's skull, which isn't unlikely, the game will resume when you hit ENTER after "alwayscont", and the drill will start drilling. Hurry and get back to the main window, enable the mouse if you disabled it, and click to stop the drill before it penetrates too deep! The game seems playable other than this.

To get around this, you can set in the configuration file, or before running the simulation, to always ignore panics. But the former solution will be in effect all the time (except when you explicitly re-enable panics before running), and you have to not forget to do the latter every session.

EDIT: I've successfully completed a subdural hematoma operation now, with the "panic: action=ignore" thing in the config file, with nary a hitch. It looks to me like it works now! But there's still no sound yet. 🙁

- Kef

Last edited by furrykef on 2003-11-18, 05:53. Edited 1 time in total.