What game is this that I have downloaded from don't-know?

General Off-Topic Discussion
1

Ok, so for the past few weeks I haven’t had time to play IF or even to sort out any additions - I’ve just been letting them pile up in my desktop, and today decided to sort them out a bit better, especially the ZCode games (they get special treatment because they can go straight to my mobile).

Now, I found a “Castleguard cave.exe” there. I have no idea what game this is. No mention in IFDB or this forum or the IFArchive or the IFWiki; Googling it leads me to a “David Taylor” with no website I can find; and launching the game gives me all sort of “Missing DLL!” errors. Tracking down each separate DLL didn’t work either.

I don’t even know where I got this from (if I did, I’d have gone there to see if I’d missed a package with dlls). Does anyone know anything about this one?

2

This puzzle seems: unhinted, unfair and a maze also. It would rate very bad in the IFComp.

3

If you want hints, I can attach the .exe file. No walkthroughs in sight, though.

4

Sorry, but I’m on a Mac. And sorry because you can’t trace the game. :slight_smile:

(Anyway: I’d never launch a .exe I dunno where it comes from :slight_smile: )

5

I trust my AV and I trust my common sense not to have downloaded anything that looked dodgy.

I do not trust myself to remember where it came from. And here we are.

6

Well, you can post it in a zip. Maybe we can figure it out.

7

Your suggestion is my attachment.

Also, the only link I could find with any info was: twitter.com/reddawnrules/status … 8939102208. I really can’t easily navigate a twitter feed (or whatever this thing is) and so was unable to find any mention of a website… but maybe it’s there…
CastleguardCave.zip (248 KB)

8

This was sat in the IF-Archive’s “unprocessed” directory for a while. When I looked at I found its missing several DLLs, so I’ve removed it and emailed the uploader - he’s recently replied that he will re-upload a fixed version with the needed DLLs.

9

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

That would have been where I got it. Mystery solved. :slight_smile:

10

And I’ve got the DLL hell figured out. 19 DLLs total. But it didn’t run in the end because I have the wrong version of the mingw32 GCC DLLs :laughing:

I think the author should look into static linking instead.

11

19? Heck, I got as far as, I don’t know, 9? But I had trouble with the version of 2 dlls, and then hit an error which did not specify the problematic dll. That’s when I gave up.

The game had better be brilliant.

EDIT - Coincidence? Just today another .zip file sits in the “Unprocessed” section of the archive again. This one has some DLL files. But apparently there are STILL some missing.

12

Why are you guys trawling the unprocessed directory of the IF archive, anyway? :open_mouth:

13

In order to know about newer releases or new games that may not be announced in places with high visibility.

Many things may have changed sinced the hub of the community shifted from R*IF to this forum, but apparently even newcomers reliably turn to the archive when it’s time to announce their games. Keeping an eye on the unprocessed directory, I can make sure I don’t miss out.