От Автора
Description
What is Win3xO?Welcome to Win3xO Version 1.0!
Win3xO is my attempt to catalog, obtain, and make playable (nearly) every game developed for the Windows 3.x platform. This primarily covers 16 bit games, however due to many late games capable of running on the Win32s extender it does include early 32bit games as well. I strive to find original media rather than using scene rips. This collection uses Windows 3.1 installed within various DosBox versions in order to emulate the OS. All required files are included in the package and all games are preconfigured to run with no configuration required by the user.
Win3xO is cross compatible with eXoDOS 2.0 (previous versions of eXoDOS will run into problems). Certain functionality within MEAGRE is enabled when both packs are detected. For example, if a game was released for both platforms, then you will see the game only listed once on your game list. However under "Platforms" you will see both DOS and Win 3.x listed. Clicking on either platform will display the box art, manual, screen shots and other info that pertains to that particular version. Both versions can be played be simply selecting the platform you want prior to launching the game. This allows users to experience both versions of a game, which is especially useful with games such as King's Quest 6 which had a different interface and high-res character portraits in the Windows 3.1 release.
MEAGRE also allows the user to browse via 'Nostalgia' mode, which is a more graphical way of browsing through the games. Try it out by selecting Nostalgia Mode from the File menu in MEAGRE. Examples and screenshots of Meagre and Nostalgia mode are below.
This pack includes 1,089 Windows 3.x games. This covers all genres and includes both commercial and shareware/freeware release games as well as a handful of apps.
All games have been pre-setup and are immediately playable with no configuration required. A one-time setup is required by the front end.
The games included were identified by scanning Mobygames, Legends World, Eli's Software, my own collection, and many searches on eBay. Unfortunately the Win 3.x era is highly undocumented. The primary hurdle in adding games to this collection is simply identifying them. Many games are simply listed as "Windows" games, which does not specify whether they are Win 3.x compatible. Sites such as Mobygames are notoriously wrong when it comes to listing platform. Often contributors have added Win 3.x as a platform to all Windows games before 1998 simply to get extra contribution points. If a game is listed for Win 3.x at Mobygames and is not in this package, then either the entry is wrong or it is one of a handful of games that are currently missing. A constantly updated list of all missing titles can be find below.
In the Bonus directory you can find the following apps:
eXoCrunch - Compression software
DBGL 079e + Converter - Conversion software for use with Dosbox game Launcher
More details about each of these can be found in their respective archives.
If the game is identical in dos and windows, I exclude it. I only include games that have some sort of noticeable difference (and not just a file bar across the top). Games like Civilization actually take advantages of windows and use windows to help the player organize the game area. Uninvited and the Deja Vu series also use the multi window format. King's Quest 6 and Leisure Suit Larry 6 both had SVGA CD versions released with higher resolution closeup pictures (completely redrawn) and updated interfaces.
Basically, games that were ported to windows often got slight updates. Those get to come alone. Games that were made for DOS and just running in windows mode aren't worth including. I design the set to be plugged into eXoDOS, so the user will have those games already anyways.
I may consider creating some sort of front end pointer that adds win3x to the platform area of DOS games, that way a game can exist in both sets if it was released for both platforms (but still only exist on the disk once, while running in the more stable dos environment).
Game List
Highlighted Series
(In No Particular Order)
MystMyst was the most influential slideshow ever made. The pre-rendered environments and haunting soundtrack created a world that has been visited by millions of gamers for over two decades. Myst pioneered a new genre, the first-person adventure game. Countless Myst clones have been released over the years, with many failing horribly and only a handful actually raising the bar.
Myst has been ported to nearly every game system and handheld available as well as being remade several times. Most recently a "Masterpiece" release of RealMyst allowed players to walk through a real-time rendering of the world of Myst with dynamic weather, day/night cycles, and a new Age (carried over from the first RealMyst release) which provides a transition to the sequel, Riven.
I still enjoy playing this game every couple of years simply to hear the sounds and play with the various contraptions scattered about the worlds.
You Don't Know JackWho hasn't played You Don't Know Jack? Like Myst, it has lived on past the operating system it was born on and still thrives on modern consoles and PCs. But for all of the versions of YDKJ that have existed, many remember the original (and its host) as their favorite.
You Don't Know Jack encouraged up to 3 folks to gather around a keyboard to answer ridiculous trivia questions. Too many keys on the keyboard to remember which one is your buzzer? Then just grab the stickers out of the box and piss your parents off by placing them on the buzzer keys. A typical round of You Don't Know Jack involves screwing your friends, screwing yourself, speaking gibberish, and realizing that you are a lot more competitive than you thought you were when it comes to inane trivia.
What really sets this series apart from your typical trivia game is the presentation. The moment the game starts the illusion that a television show is being produced kicks in. From hearing the preceding commercial break in the background to watching your desktop fade to black all the way to the end credits, the game is always selling you on the idea that this is a live show taking place right there inside your 486.
Solitaire, Mine Sweeper, and the Microsoft Entertainment Packs
It doesn't matter how amazing a game is if you don't have it on your computer to play. Games like Solitaire and Mine Sweeper are thought to account for thousands of lost hours of productivity due to their inclusion with the Windows Operating System. There was a time when Ski Free, Rattler Race, Pipe Dream, and the other games that were included in the MS Entertainment Packs were just as ubiquitous.
The most famous of the bunch, Solitaire, was developed by an intern during production of Windows 3.0. Impressed by his work and seeking to find a way to make the GUI less intimidating, Microsoft included the card game with the OS. Microsoft continued to include Solitaire with every version of Windows up until Windows 8, at which point the game was moved to the App store. To this day Solitaire is still being used to lure PC users into uncharted waters.
Microsoft HomeThe introduction of the CD-ROM was both a blessing and a curse. Consoles such as the CD-i lived and died on the altar of FMV and shovelware reference titles. Microsoft set themselves apart with a high quality line of software known as Microsoft Home. In the pre-internet days, the notion of owning an entire Encyclopedia (with videos!?) was alluring. Beyond the well known Encarta series, Microsoft continued to select specific topics (Ocean, Dinosaurs, Dogs, etc) and create comprehensive titles that aimed to be a one-stop-knowledge-shop. Sales were high and there likely would have been many more titles in this line. But then the internet happened. Suddenly info on a disk was down right dated.
That said, there are very few websites (even 20 years later) that are as fun the explore as these titles. No banners, no pop-ups, and no broken links to worry about. Most of the MS Home titles have high production standards and still look great today.
I had also planned to work up Tivola's games (they released Win3.x games as late as 2001!), Sierra's Games (the 3D pinball series, frontpage sports line, and several other titles were high quality, and possibly the Battleground series, which for the time was easily one of the strongest turn-based strategy contenders. I may still work something up and add it later.
Installation
Win3xO can be run from any directory, as all launch files are designed to use relative paths to each other. Cyrillic characters can cause problems however if they are in the path, and some usres have reported that spaces in the path name have caused them problems as well. The front-end however does require knowledge of what directory it is sitting in. Simply running the "Setup Win3xO.bat" file will automatically setup Win3xO to run from your current directory.
Running the Setup file also decompresses the GamesWIN.zip file, which contains all of the manuals, art, and game information for each title. This will take some time to decompress as it is approx. 1gb in size.
To merge eXoDOS and Win3xO (allowing you to browse both in the same menu), simply place both collections in the same folder structure and run the Win3xO setup. It will detect the eXoDOS files and add them to the frotn end.
Future Volumes
eXoDOS is compatible with Win3xO and spans 5 volumes.
Released:
eXoDOS Vol I: Adventure Version 2.0
eXoDOS Vol II: RPG Version 2.0
eXoDOS Vol III: Strategy Version 2.0
eXoDOS Vol IV: Sim/Sports/Racing/Edu Version 2.0
eXoDOS Vol V: Action Version 2.0
Upcoming:
??? Who Knows ???
Readme
Win3xO Collection
Release 1.0
[email protected]
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Contents
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Description.......................................Sec01
Front-End.........................................Sec02
Setup.............................................Sec03
Emulators.........................................Sec04
Playing the Games.................................Sec05
Directory Structure & Usage.......................Sec06
Missing Games?....................................Sec07
Volumes...........................................Sec08
Troubleshooting...................................Sec09
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Description Sec01
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This pack includes 1,089 Windows 3.x games. This covers
all genres and includes both commercial and shareware/
freeware release games.
The games included were identified by scanning Mobygames,
Legends World, Eli's Software, my own collection, and many
many searches on eBay. Unfortunately the Win 3.x era is
highly undocumented. The primary hurdle in adding games to
this collection is simply identifying them. Many games are
simply listed as "Windows" games, which does not specify
whether they are Win 3.x compatible. Sites such as Mobygames
are notriously wrong when it comes to listing platform. Many
contributors have added Win 3.x as a platform to all Windows
games before 1998 simply to get extra contribution points.
If a game is listed for Win 3.x at Mobygames and is not in
this package, then either the entry is wrong or it is one
of a handful of games that are currently missing. A
constantly updated list of all missing titles can be find
below.
All games have been pre-setup and are immediately playable,
no configuration required. A one time setup is required
by the front end.
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Front-End Sec02
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The front end used is MEAGRE, created by Donarumo. The
front ends website can be found at:
https://sites.google.com/site/meagrefrontend/homeDonarumo has graciously made several improvements to
the frontend for the benefit of this collection.
Current version in this collection is:
2.5.2.3, March 8th, 2015
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Setup Sec03
-------------------------------------------------------
The Win3xO collection can be run from any directory, as
all launch files are designed to use relative paths to
eachother. The front-end however does require knowledge
of what directory it is sitting in. Simply running the
"Setup Win3xO.bat" file will automatically setup MEAGRE
to run from your current directory.
If you have previously released eXoDOS volumes, you may
combine them and then run the "Setup Win3xO" file. This
will detect the eXoDOS packs and add them as well.
This file also decompresses the GamesWin.zip file, which
contains all of the manuals, art, and game information
for each title. This will take some time to decompress.
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Emulators Sec04
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This collection only uses DosBOX, which is located in
the following directory:
\MEAGRE\Dosbox
Dosbox 0.74 is included in this collection as well as several
SVN versions to enable advanced Windows emulation features.
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Playing the Games Sec05
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Upon downloading the collection and running the setup file,
simply run the MEAGRE.EXE file. You will be presented
with a list of all included games. To play a game for
the first time, click the "Install.bat" link under the
Setup heading on the games detail page. The install
process also allows you to set whether you like fullscreen
or windowed and any scalers. To change these options, run
the install a second time, but choose to not uninstall.
This will decompress the game, which may take some time
depending on the size (some of these games are upwards of
8 cds!).
If you run the install file a second time, it will ask
if you would like to uninstall the game. Choosing
"yes" will erase the installed files from your disk, but
keep the original ZIP file. You will loose any saved
games, high scores, or other settings you have defined
since the game was installed.
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Directory Structure & Usage Sec06
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dosbox - Place your copy of DosBox here.
Games - All the games, compressed and t-zipped.
util - files called by the launch batch files.
\Games\!win3x - Within the games folder is another folder
called !win3x in which all the art, manuals,
and game information for each title reside.
The ini file within the inifile directory points to all
artwork, game info, manuals, extras, launch files, and
install files. To add an art asset, simply drop it in
the proper folder, and add the name of the file to the
ini file. It is quite easy to figure out. Much credit
to Donarumo for such a versatile front-end.
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Missing Games? Sec07
-------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately Win3.x games have not been preserved very well,
leading to many games that are currently missing. A list of
known missing titles can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/ns6tyy9
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Volumes Sec08
-------------------------------------------------------
Current:
eXoDOS Volume 1: The Adventure Collection
eXoDOS Volume 2: The RPG Collection
eXoDOS Volume 3: The Strategy Collection
eXoDOS Volume 4: The Simulation\Sports\Educational Collection
eXoDOS Volume 5: The Action Collection
Win3xO: The Windows 3.x Collection
-------------------------------------------------------
Trouble Shooting Sec09
-------------------------------------------------------
Q: When I run MEAGRE.EXE it gives an error and no games
show up.
A: Make sure you have run the "Setup Win3xO.bat" file.
If you still have issues, open the MEAGRE.INI file and
check to see that the fourth line down (UFEPath=), is
set to the directory you are running the collection
from. If it is not, then change it and rerun MEAGRE.EXE.
Also verify that there is a folder called "!win3x" under
the Games folder:
ex. c:\exodos\games\!win3x\
This folder contains all the front end game information.
If it is missing then the GamesWin.zip file has not been
decompressed by the "Setup Win3xO.bat" file yet.
Q: You're missing a game!
A: See the section on missing games.
Q: You're missing a manual/cover/extra/etc....
A: Yes, I am missing many. If you know of a place to
obtain any missing assets you can contact me at
[email protected].
================================================================
-
I design these packs for people who don't give a crap about dosbox. People who never had to type 'dir' in their life. People who get a queasy feeling in their stomach when they see a screen with no GUI. The fact that folks who are well versed in dosbox can also appreciate them is great, but those people could have set the games up themselves if they really wanted to. So they aren't my audience. I spend more time making my packs easy to use than i do setting up games and getting them to run. So hopefully you see I'm not just shooting down peop[le's ideas for the sake of it - I simply have to have a solution that plays the game AND makes it extremely easy in the process.
As of today (update day at the top of the post), there are 946 games complete and added to the Win 3.x collection. I have approx 60 more games on my list to parse through and about 80 known missing games. Once I finish adding the currently identified games I will have a lot of clean-up work to do (normalizing the various front end fields such as making sure all instances of Sierra Online, Inc. are typed identically, otherwise you get two entries for the same company). I also have to spend some time browsing replacement docs and a few other sources to bulk the pack up with manuals where possible.
Finally, the most time intensive task is to parse through two very large Win3x game packs I found online. They are about 600 games each are comprised of smaller non-installed games (shareware, freeware, etc). As there is no master list and the games are packed by short file name (8 characters), I generally have to unpack the game and actually boot it just to know what it is. At that point I have to cross reference it with my database to see if I have it or not. If I do, screw you game, you get deleted. If I don't, then I have to document it in my database, run scripts to generate the front end files, and then add the game.
Win3xO will be compatible with eXoDOS. As of eXoDOS version 2 some of you may have noticed that the front end files that used to be stored in .\exodos\games\!games are now in .\exodos\games\!dos. I made this move to facilitate the addition of new OS's/consoles/platforms. While the actual game archives will still be in .\exodos\games (so all windows and dos games will be in that same folder), the actual front end files will get extracted to !dos and !win respectively. For those of you who combine the packs, you will find some fun functionality.
You may wonder how MEAGRE handles a game that exists in both dos and windows. We came up with clever functionality that will only list the game once, however in the "platform" field you will see all relevant operating systems (so, PLATFORM: DOS, Win3x). By clicking either OS it will change the entire games entry to that platform. Box art, screenshots, media, release dates - it all changes to match whichever OS is selected. You will know which one it is as it will be in bold. Of course, this also controls which version of the game you will be launching as well. This is a great way to see some of the differences between releases. Sierra for example released a few of their adventure games in High Res on win3.x King's Quest 6 is a great example of this. KQ6 is notorious for not running properly on modern windows machines (even as recent as win98 is was broken), so this pack brings back the penultimate version of one of my favorite adventure games.
One feature I have not made use of in MEAGRE prior to this is the ratings function. Games can be assigned 1-5 stars and then sorted by this rating. One of the major differences between DOS and Win3.x games are familiarity. I have had countless conversations with folks asking me what games were actually made for Win3x and whether or not any of them were any good. While the Win3x era did suffer from the advent of FMV and multimedia (like the CDi, 3DO, Sega CD) it also (like those systems) has some hidden games that are absolutely amazing. So I've decided to go ahead and add a rating for each game to allow folks to easily filter out the great games and hopefully prevent all the absolute garbage games from running people off before they find the good ones. Granted, we are talking about pre-metacritic era here, so the rating system is going to be based on my amazingly insightful and well educated opinion. Knowing that not everyone cares about my opinion, I will include a little batch file in the .\util\ folder that will go through and strip out all of the ratings for those who don't want them.
How Win3x is packed and emulated (and why that's not changing)
There are a lot of ways to skin a cat and I spent a lot of time skinning a lot of cats to find the way that worked best for this project. It is not an over estimate to state that I have spent thousands of hours ever year for the past 5 years working on various aspects of eXoDOS and Win3xO. I wouldn't put that sort of time into it if I didn't love the project. But to be passionate about a project means to hold it to certain standards. For me to decide I am going to start on a new project means the following has to be true:
The platform in question can be emulated cleanly and run on most computers
The project is accessible through a front end (MEAGRE) and can be used with all previous eXo projects
The pack automates the install/launch of games, allowing folks with zero experience in emulation to make use of the games
The entire package is portable, can easily be distributed online, and does not require specific software to be installed on the user's machine. All required software has to be included within the release.
The structure allows the pack to be seeded and played at the same time. No files that are seeded are ever modified by the process of running the setup or playing a game
The key here is uniformity and ease of use. I could have opted to release a giant folder full of games. But the number of people out there capable of setting up a game in dosbox (let alone a Win3x game in dosbox) is incredibly small. What is the point of preserving and archiving games if so few people can actually run them. The ease of use of eXoDOS has allowed it to find hosting on major public sites, and now a good portion of the games can be played directly within a browser (at one point you could share and play my pack directly through a twitter window). None of that is possible with a folder full of games or a project that requires the user to go and acquire an emulator, install a service, or anything else that violates the rule of the project archive being totally self sufficient.
In order to create a Windows 3.x package that adhered to these conditions meant creating the project in a way, that at first glance, might seem inefficient. I chose dosbox as it is the most portable solution with the highest compatibility. That is not to say it is great at running Win3x games. It is actually shit at running Win3x games. But the problem is, other PC style emulators are even more shit at it.
Back when I was testing ways to skin a cat I debated between a master Win3x install, individual Win3x installs for each game, or a selection of about 10 or so installs (each with a different combination of software, color depth, and resolution). I found that on a consistent basis that if I added more than a handful of games to the same copy of Win3x it would break compatibility with games I had already added. This is due to the fact that many 16 bit windows games require a specific color depth, specific resolution, and a specific version of quicktime. Then you have WinG, Win32s, and Video for Windows along with other proprietary software that various games like to add (Motion Pixels comes to mind). Game installs were not regulated, and so not only do they install the games files, but they often drop files in the main windows folder, the system folder, and they edit the system.ini file anytime they see fit. Even to the point of breaking the boot of windows fairly often because it adds a device call that was already present and Win3x doesn't know how to handle calling the same device twice.
The most common solution proposed here is to take a clean copy of win3x, install a game to it, and then run a file difference utility to determine all changed/added files. Then zip these files up as the game archive. Then when the game is decompressed it "simply" (quotations added because it's much easier said than done) copies the files into the base install and you launch the game and away you go. The first problem here is time. When you are adding a thousand games, if the process to add the game is an extra 15 minutes for each game, then you just added 1,500 minutes to the project. 25 hours may not seem like a lot over the course of a year, but I guarantee there will be problem games that take much longer than 15 minutes. There are *always* problem games.
In this case I have to not only identify the diff files, but ONLY archive them. Time aside, one of the primary issues here is that only one game can be decompressed at a time, as setting up a new game requires the base image to be reset and have the new files extracted to it. The only way around this is to have the base image cloned each time a new game is setup, and have it's diff files extracted to the cloned base. The more games you have installed and running at a given time, the less beneficial this setup is, as it is defeating the whole point of having 1 base image. Another problem with 1 base image is that win3x games like to generate files while being used. This includes config files, save files, temp files, cached data from the cd-rom, etc... If one uses a single base image, then you loose all progress you had the second you setup a new game. I doubt you want to replay the last 5 hours of Myst because your kid booted Math Munchers. It's just a poor setup.
Once you then take into account that some games have to be run from a hard drive image (so they can't make use of the base image anyways), then I would have to create different launch files to handle the two types of games (one launches the image but the other copies the base install around and decompresses to it). Splitting the launch base means my script tools break down because I don't have uniformity across them anymore).
So what was the cost of my choice to give each game it's own customized install of Windows 3x? Well, the files that make up just the OS are 20mb when zipped. Approx 1/4 of the games required a hard drive image to run properly, so even if I had tried to use a shared install, they wouldn't have benefited from it. So if I end up with 1,000 games in the pack, and 750 of those have their own copy of win3x, then that means I have added 15gb to the overall size of the project. That may seem significant, but when you consider that the project currently stands at around 325gb, it is less than 5% of the total file size.
That 15gb also guarantees that every game will work when you unpack it, no other game can cause it to stop working, you retain all saves, settings, and progress you make in each game, and each game archive is self contained and is playable on it's own. The end user doesn't have to download the game, the base images, the launchers that copy them, the utilities that allow the diff copying, and the emulator just to launch a single game. Oh, and I saved a lot of time too. The solution I chose is the most stable of all the variations I tested. And in an age where a person can pick up a portable 1tb HD for less than $50, the benefit of saving 15 gigabytes at the cost of stability, portability, time, and ease of use simply wasn't there for me.
I have added this info to the front page post due to the fact it comes up fairly often and the same discussion ends up occurring each time. While folks are welcome to read the various discussions, I'm not real interested in having the discussions again. This section aims to cover the way I chose to package this project and the reasons behind it. At this point it is not changing
list Win3xO
LINK TO ARCHIVED GAMES LIST
http://tinyurl.com/lxqfua8,
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fi1xUvwpLTUq45gla_wP9lWW7p5QwOkgbnV9M1D1angLINK TO MISSING GAMES LIST
http://tinyurl.com/ooo2rtk,
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_T_0SW21xYeKl6yBZlRUMnd5zmhbAHp8DWSWzbOnA70
темы eXoDOS на первоисточнике
1
http://forum.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=24630 ADV
2
http://forum.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=24631 RPG
3
http://forum.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=24650 STR
4
http://forum.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=24656 SIM
5
http://forum.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=24672 ACT
IA
http://forum.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=28209 IA
6
http://forum.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=26972 3x
1-6
http://forum.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=23787 1-6
7
http://forum.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=28235 9x
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