Play MoO, MoO2, MoM, etc. online in a broswer legally from Internet Archive

Talk about strategy games like MoO series, Civilization, Europa Universalis, etc.

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Teensy Juggernaut
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Play MoO, MoO2, MoM, etc. online in a broswer legally from Internet Archive

#1 Post by Teensy Juggernaut »

Consider this a public service announcement, a way for a newbie to say 'Hi'. I searched and didn't see anything, apologies if it is.

If you want to play the classics but don't have them or don't know how to use the internet O:) the marvelous Internet Archive software curator and overall archivist master of the universe Jason Scott Sadofsky, back in '15 got it rolling, and just now in Oct '19 put up thousands more classic DOS and Windows and console games. While nerding out browsing them, I ran across our SimTex favorites and ended up killing over an hour playing a MoO game all the way through. They'be been archived for years but not downloadable of course. Now you can play via a dosbox session to your browser. Save games even work. Just don't close that browser page; close the browser, lose the save.

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[geekout - skip if you don't care]
This is possible through a project called emscripten. What makes DOS browser gaming possible is em-DOSBox As for saving in-memory saves to real storage, Daniel Brooks is responsible for archive.org's version of em-dosbox and posted this bit back in 2015, but his fork of em-dosbox is now deleted and he's working from a more universal embedding setup, emularity. (We could ask but I am guessing it's 'no' since how could you then prevent copying the game files and anything else, breaking their streaming-only licensing agreement? Any mem->disk file copy code will probably be DIY or something less simple like saving it from about:cache if we can make it accessible.]
[/geekout]
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If somehow you live in a hole and are not used to dosbox, remember Ctrl-F12 speeds up cycles and Ctrl-F11 lowers them, if it's taking forever between turns or the controls seem sluggish or the audio is choppy. (sometimes less is more, btw. don't always assume you need to increase. Here's a list of all the dosbox control keys.)
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Play Master of Orion (1993) in an HTML5 browser window, courtesy of Internet Archive.

SimTex also released the same game but as swords 'n sorcery type construct, amazingly enough, called Master of Magic.

Play Master of Magic (1994) in an HTML5 browser window, courtesy of Internet Archive.

And the classic, the real master of Master games, all hail...

Play Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares (1996) in an HTML5 browser window, courtesy of Internet Archive.

Before you ask, no I didn't see MoO3 up, although there are manual, game guides, etc.
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PS: Hey! FreeOrion 0.4.8 is there since Sep '18! Very few views (~350) vs. the real games (10k+ for MoO2, 128k+ for MoO), but hey it's there for eternity or until WWIII wipes out humanity.

Play FreeOrion 0.4.8 in an HTML5 browser window, courtesy of Internet Archive.
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Just FYI, there's about 7000 MS-DOS games you can play for free on Internet Archive right now, and it grows constantly.

And if you're old enough to remember arcade games that took your allowance, or just a fan of gaming history - here's The Internet Arcade: 1,700+ Coin-Op Arcade Games, also courtesy of Jason / Internet Archive. MAME never had such a widespread audience!

Don't go getting lost for weeks, nostalgia is a mean, mean woman. :twisted:

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