Is there any chance the game executable is looking for something on the disk (weak bits, half tracks, etc.) and running differently if it doesn't find them? No. When I say that the keydisk protection scheme "wraps" the program file, I mean that the keydisk checking routine replaces the protected …

Turbo Pascal you say... This might be old hat here, but once upon a time I made an attempt to play the DOS version of Wizardry 1 in dosbox. The RNG seemed totally FUBARed. I was going out of my mind, all my characters were constantly losing stats every time they leveled up. I never once …

The 5.25" disk's content is identical to the 3.5" disk's, except for the fact that TRILOGY.COM is wrapped with the Formaster Copylock keydisk checking routine. So, no long-lost version with correct gameplay. :( Thanks for helping track it down. That's unfortunate :( Is there any chance the game …

here you go, this is my disk/box: https://i.imgur.com/M3iqXhL.png :) Thanks for sharing these! That's interesting. From what I can find, Keypunch published a release under license from Epyx in 1989. It looks like a lower cost re-release. They're known for their budget releases, so maybe something …

TDC has a Kryoflux image of a 720 KiB disk of the game. The files are identical to yours, with the exception of additional "AUTOEXEC.BAT" and "GO.BAT" files. Unless somebody unearths a 360 KiB disk of the game with different files (such as this one or this one ), I would say that the finding is …

But in the meantime, one other vague possibility comes to mind: what if you run the game in PCem, but set the (emulated) system clock to a date in 1986? Maybe the programmers used the system date for a random number seed or something, and never anticipated that the game would be run decades later. …

One more follow up. I tracked down everything for PCem. I set up an IBM PC with DOS 3.30 and the made a 360K floppy disk image from the Steam version of the game. It plays exactly the same in PCem. I went through a couple rooms, killed some Mosquitos and Swamp Rats, picked up the Copper Ingot, a …

I generated MD5 sums and compared them across the Steam release and other archives I could find. They're all the same. Some will occasionally include a save game, character file, or batch file to start it, but all of the game's executable and data files are identical. If someone has Disk version …

An obvious step would be to try them on authentic hardware, or in PCem, or even in a more recent version of DOSBox. I ran them in DOSBox. Unfortunately I don't have any vintage PC hardware on hand. I'm not familiar with PCem, but I'll take a look. You can easily compare different versions by …

As some probably know, the Temple of Apshai Trilogy was just released on Steam yesterday. They're distributing the DOS version with DOSBox. After playing it for a bit, I noticed it plays very oddly for Apshai. For one, the monsters do almost no damage, to even lightly armored characters. I've never …