Exile - An old 16-bit RPG

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Hey

Am I the only one that remembers the Exile games around the Windows 95 - 98 time frame?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile_%28video_game_series%29

They were freaking amazing, its a shame being 16-bit that they don't work on 64-bit Windows 7, 8, 10. I want to play them again and I don't have the means to right now. I want to install Windows 98 in qemu on Linux but have been too lazy to do so. I know there is a 32-bit remake called Avernum but I can't stand the axonometric preceptive. These games were as vast as Skyrim if you don't mind reading a mountain of text. Did anyone play this game?

I might try the Linux version of Exile III but I don't own the game for Linux, only Windows and it appears they are separate products. Still I am going to try the Linux demo on spider web software web site.

The screenshots look very familiar, but I don't remember playing them...

Try running them in DOSBox with Win 3.11, or run a 32-bit Windows in Virtual PC.

Oh yeah I remember the Exile games and Spiderweb Software! Many fun times were had.

There was a demo on the galaxy of games cd that came out in the 90s, you may have played it or seen it extremely briefly on that.



I did, they run but they run like crap, glitchy graphics and Windows 3.11 runs horribly on Dosbox with max cycles set. I'll play around with it some more but Windows 3.11 on Dosbox is not very stable, I might have more luck though with Dosbox Mega Build. Its old and not maintained but runs versions of Windows much better than even the current dosbox.



Thats the plan but with Qemu, I might actually play around with dosbox a bit more before going this route though. I did originally want to create a Windows 95, Windows 2000 and Windows 10 virtual machines through qemu for different games from different eras. With advancements in hardware passthrough, I wanted to treat my host Linux like a menu for different virtual machines, both Windows and Linux. The advantage to this is if one system fails, I still have several usable desktops and the other advantage I can see is testing multiple operating systems under one machine.

If you wondering why I would emulate Windows 95 and 2000 and not 98 and XP is I only have legal copies for Windows 95, 2000, 7 (And in turn 10) and I don't support piracy. I have done it a few times, mostly as a teenager when I was trying to get a hold of stuff my parents wouldn't approve of but these days I run mostly licensed software. The last thing pirated I ran was winrar and that has since been replaced with 7zip. I ran Ubuntu most of XP's life and used 2000 well into its life as well, up until 2007. I went from Windows 2000 to Ubuntu 7.04.

Weird. I've never had any issues with 3.11 in DOSBox, even on my older machines.

I don't know if it makes any difference, but I specifically meant Windows for Workgroups 3.11. I always forget that there was an older Win 3.11.

Virtual PC seems like it would be easier, since it's not an emulator, but I don't know anything about Qemu.

Is Blades of Exile any good to you?

Looks like some source was released and worked on?

* spiderwebforums{dot}ipbhost{dot}com/index{dot}php?/forum/12-blades-of-exile/
* spidweb{dot}com/blades/opensource{dot}html

There's quite a bit going on with that forum and it looks like download links for the original binaries are there too.

I wonder if - reactos{dot}org - ReactOS or WINE can run the original binaries?

When you brought up Exile, this was the first thing I thought of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile_%28 ... _series%29

It too is a 16-bit RPG series, with a rather unique premise and plotline. I imagine that in today's political climate, there's no way they would release something like it, since the main character is a Syrian assassin who uses various psychoactive drugs instead of typical RPG healing potions, and the plot contains numerous religious and political references. I've never tried any of the games, but I've been meaning to.

Cool, looks interesting and it appears I actually have this game from my pirating days on my external hard drive. Thats about the only files that exist from my pirating days is game roms and some music. It runs great through the gens emulator and the fact you use drugs in the game is both awesome and hilarious. I am going play it a bit tonight, thanks for the heads up, I would have never notice this game on my hard drive if you didn't point it out.

That was one of my favorites. I remember trying to make my own maps to help me remember where to go.

I remember the sense of accomplishment I got from beating Exile 3, good times.

I don't think I am running that, I think mine is just Windows 3.1. I don't know it ran fine for a while but I kept copying it over to new drives and its seems to have gotten worse and worse, perhaps it will work fine if I reinstall it. Can I upgrade to Windows 3.11 from Windows 3.1 legally? Like I said, I am not much into piracy these days.



Qemu is basically a command line Virtual PC on unix-based operating system, there is unofficial Qemu for Windows but its kinda pointless as Qemu requires a lot of unix-based dependencies. Its by and large unaccelerated on Windows and generally has poor performance. Qemu on unix-based operating system however is one of the most advance virtual machines out there and has very advance hardware passthrough meaning you can run an accelerated video card via hardware virtualization inside a virtual machine. This allows for very intense 3D applications like Borderlands and Skyrim to run inside a virtual machine, Qemu and Xen are the only hypervisors that have this capability right now.

I think the Genesis/Megadrive versions were censored IIRC. You'll probably want to play one of the Japanese home computer versions or possibly the PC Engine version.

Probably.

I doubt you can upgrade to Windows for Workgroups, but I think they have enough patches to make regular Win 3.x pretty similar. Pretty sure they have an update to add 32-bit support to it.

I think in order to upgrade Win3.1 to 3.11, you might need a special "upgrade" edition, but I'm not entirely sure. I've messed around with it myself on PCem using *ahem* "unofficial" copies. I could be confusing it with the upgrade process for different versions of MS-DOS though, since I know I tried an upgrade from 5 to 6.22 and it didn't work out. Whatever the case, if you want to do it all legitimately, try scouring eBay. Be sure you have some way of reading floppy disks too, whether it be with an old computer or a USB floppy drive. I'm not sure how compatible their custom formatting is with modern OSes though.

Also, I might have to try Qemu on Linux sometime. I know I've tried using the Windoze versions before, and I've never really cared for them. Maybe if I swap my Athlon 860k for an APU, I'll be able to use the passthrough to run games on Windoze through Qemu with my GPU. This way I'd be able to take full advantage of Linux's benefits while still being able to run Windows games at near native speed.

Oh yeah, that's right, I think WFWG3.11 runs on a newer MS-DOS version.

MS really should make all of that ancient unsupported stuff free now. I think Apple does.

Maybe not 2K or XP, but I don't see how anything older than that would cause much of a fuss.

They only censored out the opiates for some reason and am far far to lazy to look up PC Engine Emulation, never done it and never care to. Also on topic, I got Exile III native to Linux working for about $10 on my Laptop so I am just going to play that. Might play the games out of sequence but I am not too bothered by that.

Honestly I would rather spend money on Exile than anything on the steam sale right now