I’m glad to know that Gaming Pathology readers are as interested in this project as I am and shared in my disappointment that I couldn’t run Lost Eden. VAG came through with a suggestion to downgrade DOSBox. Unfortunately, even DOSBox 0.63 begs for mercy. I came up with the brilliant idea to actually run the game natively through Windows XP. I was hesitant to do this the first time since I remembered the instructions advising against running under Windows. The game actually does run in the WinXP Command Prompt, but without sound, and only in fullscreen mode. I can’t capture screenshots from any of my utilities and I can’t get the Command Prompt to operate in a window and still play the game.
Mans R. proposed and implemented another solution: A VMware image running FreeDOS. This turns out to work, though, again, without sound. No matter– the game has subtitles which are likely far superior to the voice acting (though the MobyGames entry mentions that some people thought the soundtrack was good enough to release separately).
So I can get screenshots using the VMware image. They come with VMware frames but I have a process to remove those automatically later before I submit them to MobyGames. This is Eloi, a character in Lost Eden, and he is old:
Remember, this is a game about a land of intelligent dinosaurs and the humans who coexist with them. So now I am able to view the intro FMV in all of its silent, subtitled glory. Given the length of the sequences between subtitles, the designers sure were proud of the FMV. It’s actually quite beautiful by 1995 standards. It speaks of a crumbled alliance between the dinosaurs and the humans. Then I am thrust into the first part of the game where I, Adam, the Prince of Mo, must wander around the Citadel of Mo — which is not nearly as large as it sounds, thankfully — searching for the long lost secret of what makes the citadel so impenetrable by T-rex’s. It’s also my birthday, or “coming of age” day, and everyone in the joint has a Coming Of Age Day present for me.
Here is a sample gameplay screen:
On the bottom, there are items that you have accumulated. On the top is your location and the number of characters presently in your party. Characters will come and go during the game, according to the manual. It looks like there are enough slots to hold at least 4 and perhaps up to 5 characters. Clicking on the characters, or right-clicking the mouse, takes you to the status screen where you can pan to individual characters, talk to them, or ask them questions regarding your items. Clicking on your character in this sub-screen will take you to game information (save/exit/settings/etc.). In the primary gameplay screen is a constantly rotating cube as a mouse cursor. You can point to where you want to travel to next, or perhaps whom you would like to talk to next. At first, I was a little annoyed that, unlike Of Light And Darkness, this didn’t appear to have hotspots to indicate where you could move. But, somewhat cleverly, the rotating cube forms arrows as it rotates to indicate possible directions of movements, and transforms into a scaling eyeball icon to indicate that something can be examined.
So far, this is just typical adventure fare. Allow me to spoil the game all the way up until you learn the secret for building T-rex-proof citadels: Wander around the citadel, familiarize yourself with places you can travel, including the citadel foyer, the main hallway, the king’s chambers, your bedroom, the mummy crypt, and the execution chamber. Eloi, the advisor is talking to your dad, the king. Pop says you can’t leave the citadel because it’s dangerous out there. Eloi meets you in your room to tell you to sneak out the side door with Eloi’s sister, Dina, to go visit Grandpa Tau, who’s dying. You stealthily cross the snow-covered plains with Dina to watch their old pterodactyl die. He gives you some items before croaking. You trek back to the citadel and visit the cryptkeeper. This is when he gives you your present of a courage amulet. You give this to Dina to give her courage to enter the executioner’s chamber to talk to the executioner because she has the ability to translate his gibberish. He then gives you your present– the tooth of the guy who designed the citadel. A clue! …
Bored yet? I sure was. I got a little further and figured out the secret to building the uncrackable citadels. Then I got a prism. I didn’t have the motivation to jump through the next hoop and figure out what to do with it. What I’m getting at here is that the proceedings are — at least the beginning of the game — rote adventure game tedium. Alas, I never got to see the strategy or RPG game elements.
Do you still care about the unbreakable citadel secret? There’s a giant lizard underneath the place blowing on a giant horn that apparently scares off the T-rex’s. I think that has something to do with it. Then there is the matter of keeping the citadels safe while they are still under construction. It turns out the secret here is harmonious collaboration between the non-T-rex dinosaurs and the humans. The dinosaurs are on construction detail while the humans fight any T-rex’s who drop by. Or the duties might be reversed. Either way, it didn’t seem that earthEden-shattering. But apparently, it would have been necessary to coordinate that kind of effort later in the game to construct more citadels in order to protect more humans, and probably to re-energize strained dino-human relations.
VAG says:
Oh man, this game DESERVES to be played with sound! Anyway, I just digged up my cd, installed it and it works fined under dosbox 0.63. If you not tried yet, try to select SoundBlaster Pro soundcard during game setup. And make sure all parameters (Port/IRQ/DMA) match ones from dosbox.conf. Hope this helps.
Multimedia Mike says:
I think I tried all 3 SB options offered, and with a variety of settings. The setup kept informing me that it liked the port number but not the IRQ. I did not verify the port number in the DOSBox conf file. I should do that now since it’s easy and reliable to do so.
VAG says:
My (default?) dosbox settings on that matter:
[sblaster]
# sblaster — Enable the soundblaster emulation.
# base,irq,dma — The IO/IRQ/DMA address of the soundblaster.
# sbrate — Sample rate of soundblaster emulation.
# adlib — Enable the adlib emulation.
# adlibrate — Sample rate of adlib emulation.
# cms — Enable the Creative Music System/Gameblaster emulation.
# Enabling both the adlib and cms might give conflicts!
# cmsrate — Sample rate of cms emulation.
sblaster=true
base=220
irq=7
dma=1
sbrate=22050
adlib=true
adlibrate=22050
adlibmode=adlib
cms=false
cmsrate=22050
Multimedia Mike says:
I seem to recall that the IRQ options were 2, 5, 7, and 10 in the game. I cycled through all of them and it would accept none.
VAG says:
And what’s specified in your dosbox.conf ?
FJODIN says:
SO! Did anyone played this game with sound?
Multimedia Mike says:
No, but I eventually ripped the converted the soundtrack to listen to it separately. It’s not bad.
FJODIN says:
Me too… bu I can remebmer that i have ran this game 1 year ago with sound…… I cant remember what i’ve done that time!
FJODIN says:
What is VDMSound ? maybe it can help???
FJODIN says:
YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I MADE IT! Here is my instruction to play Lost Eden:
1) Copy all files from CD to you Hard Drive
2) Install D-Fend an Dosbox
3) Open D-Fend and create a profile for Lost Eden using Wizard (F2). As “Game Exe†choose INSTDOS.EXE from Eden folder (Example C:\ EDEN\INSTDOS.EXE). When Wizard ask you configure the mounts, click “Auto Createâ€. When Wizard creates mount drive, click on it and choose “Editâ€. Then Change “Mounted drive letter†to C:\
4) Install the game
5) Play the game :)
PS DFend link – http://emulationrealm.net/modules/wfdownloads/singlefile.php?cid=219&lid=363
Multimedia Mike says:
Future gaming generations will appreciate your diligence, FJODIN.
Darryl says:
WOW, thank you so much, i found this site completely by accident, i loved Lost Eden as a kid but forgot what it was called, when i came here i look at the screenshots and i remembered all about the game and how much fun i used to have, thank you, i now know what to search for on ebay =D.
Multimedia Mike says:
You’re welcome for the memories. And thanks for indicating that you would search for it through legit channels rather than begging me to upload a copy. :-)
Raziel says:
Hello.
I have Lost Eden and after downloading the music for the game, I really want to play it again. I downloaded D-Fend Reloaded and the instructions posted above just go right over my head.
Can someone clarify it a little more or am I really just too much of a DOS noob to understand any of it?
Neo says:
I just wanted to say thank you to all the posters in here~
I’ve been trying to get Lost Eden to work on my newer computer for ages and with the info here, I got it to work WITH sound! Thank you so much!
I’m on a mission to capture the music that was not released on the soundtrack CD (such as the second valley’s theme and Moorkus Rex’s theme). Hopefully I can do so now!
jck87 says:
Hi,
I’m running vista and have been unable to install Lost Eden so far. With dosbox I can get it to run if I use edenprg.exe and if I save all the files to my hard disk I can also save, but I can’t seem to get any sound. I’ve tried to use this D-Fend thing but when I follow the instruction I still get the same error during install. First it says I haven’t got enough discspace on drive A dispite setting it to drive C and when I continue I get this:
Error when creating file
C:\Dune$$$$.$$$
file or path was not found
When I click ok it goes back to asking manual or automatic installation. I’d really like to hear the sound again any ideas?