Hey there fellow Midnight Society Members. = )
I know that lots of us are looking for this game, so I decided to create this document for the group so that these links to the Orpheo’s Curse PC game will have a permanent place here, granting everyone easy access to this amazing adventure. These files are hosted at Mediafire where I’ve been a member for many years now which means these links should be good for quite some time. I intentionally kept each part at 200mb or less so that anyone can download them without wait times and without having to sign up for anything.
Once you have all three parts, simply highlight the 3 together and unzip them simultaneously.
Note, these zip files were created using 7zip. In a perfect world, any archive utility *should* be able to unpack them, but if you get errors with WinZip or WinRar, just use 7zip instead which is available free from their website at http://www.7-zip.org/ Don’t forget that you have to unzip all 3 at once; they can not be unzipped individually because it just doesn’t work that way.
Everything will unpack to a single folder titled, “Are You Afraid of the Dark (PC)”.
Inside is the game disc image file (.iso), the manual scans (.pdf) and the DosBox instructions (.txt).
Part 1:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?gdta3catypyxj1a
Part 2:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?nca3qb65a5qec5w
Part 3:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zsnmno19w9aqnbv
Notes:
DosBox:
– Orhpeo’s Curse is a DOS based game and will not run in any version of Windows, not even in any of the compatibility modes simply because DOS is an entirely different operating system.
For this reason, you will need a free program called, “DosBox” from http://www.dosbox.com/ to play this game. DosBox is a DOS emulator that runs on any 32 or 64 bit version of Windows, including XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Note that when using the DosBox command prompt, syntax is everything. One character out of place and you will get an error message. So, follow the included instructions carefully, type slowly, and be patient. It’s well worth it!
– Two problems I’m well aware of with DosBox that both occur at startup are:
1) It may default to full screen view which in some cases may prevent you from typing what you need to type. If this happens, simply press, “ALT + Enter” to switch to Windowed view, then click anywhere in the black area to begin typing. Note that even though you’re entering text in a windowed mode, when the game starts, you will play in full-screen mode.
2) At startup, DosBox will show you a warning about how “Mounting C: drive is NOT recommended…” Fear not. You can ignore this message because as you’ll also see, it automatically corrects whatever it thinks is wrong anyway and will do so every time. If we didn’t mount C: drive, we couldn’t boot the game, so it’s just one of those wonky things that “comes with the territory” as they say. Don’t worry about it.
Burning a CD vs. Using Virtual Drive software:
– IMPORTANT: When getting ready to install the game, you must first decide if you’ll want to use a CD you burned, or if you’d rather use a virtual drive every time you play. It’s very important that you stick to your decision because whichever you use for installation is what you will have to use to play. You can not switch back and forth at random each time. To make a long story short, it just doesn’t work that way. Whichever drive you used to install the game is the one you’ll have to use to play it unless you want to completely reinstall and point the game to a different drive.
My opinion on which to choose is this – Go for the virtual drive software. Here’s why…
Burning games to CD introduces many new variables, most of which are problematic. Let’s really think about his for a minute. When burning CDs, you have to worry about the quality of the blank media, the quality of your burner, the quality, accuracy and settings of your burning software… (Most people choose or let “easy / 1-click” type software select burn rates that are way too high and then wonder why the game freezes at random or just plain doesn’t work. In addition, there’s spin up and disc access time, it’s noisy and consumes a lot of power, the disc winds up scratched, or lost… When you add it all up, what you have is ultimately just a wonky, undependable mess. The use of a virtual drive eliminates all these issues, cuts out all the variables and thus prevents so many problems so you can just play the game without headaches.
If virtual drive software is new to you, I know it can be a bit scary at first trying new programs like this, but I assure you, it’s easier than you may think! Have a look at my first choice called, “Daemon Tools Lite” here: http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/products/dtLite
Although there is a paid version, the free version is all you’ll ever need. If you don’t find it rather intuitive and the text instructions aren’t quite enough, there are plenty of YouTube videos up that can actually show you how it works and how easy it really is when you learn the basics. Even if it all seems weird and confusing to you now, I assure you, you’ll thank me later and be glad you dumped that old-school CD.
However, if you’re digging your heels in and really just want to burn a CD, here are some things to consider in order to ensure the best results:
1) Understand that not all blank CDs are the same. The integrity of manufacturing processes differ greatly and more expensive does NOT equal higher quality or better dependability. In fact, it’s interesting to note that the brand name you see on the package is not necessarily the manufacturer that actually produced them. I have burned thousands upon thousands of discs in many, many different burners and when asked, can say from personal experience that among the more readily available brands who produce their own product such as “Ritek” and “TDK” are fantastic, generating maybe 2-3 coasters per 100. On the other hand, Memorex, one of the companies that employs third parties to create their blank discs, usually the lowest bidder which can change from batch to batch is to be avoided at all costs due to complete lack of consistency and a failure rate of 15% or higher. Again, I speak of my own experiences and am simply offering a bit of advice based on that.
2) Use a well respected and trusted burning software like IMGburn from http://www.imgburn.com/ that offers the correct options and be willing to use them to obtain quality results. Even though it’s free, it beats the heck out of many paid programs. There is no need to waste your money on inferior software and it’s very important to have control over the burning process where the settings should be adjusted based on what you’re burning. More on this in #3 below.
3) Burn SLOWLY and make use of the “verify” option! I can’t stress this enough. I know we all want it yesterday, but when burning software CDs and DVDs, you’ve got to slow it down or you’ll basically just be making coasters. Sure, maybe it seems to work at first but then…surprise! You have to remember that playing games from optical media is very different and far more demanding on hardware than playing music and movies. With games, the laser has to dart around everywhere since the data it needs is always changing at random and is accessed from all over the surface of the disc. In contrast, playing music and movies is like playing a record where the needle, or laser in this case, just moves slowly and lazily in a spiral along the track in what can basically be considered a straight and simple line. Most burners offer 48x standard now which can be acceptable for music, but speeds less than half that such as 16x and even 8x are just too fast when the data needs to be truly and totally accurate as is the case with games.
Choose the 2.4x burn rate and allow the software to use it’s “verify” function if you expect your disc to work properly. Yeah, it takes a lot longer, but spending the extra few minutes during the burn process to ensure accuracy will save you hours of headaches later when you can’t figure out why your CD doesn’t work and your game keeps crashing.
4) Please, avoid those stick-on labels! Those do make your media look pretty, but the tradeoff is that they seriously change the balance and weight of your disc which is critical for accurate reading. Of course, some drives are more forgiving with this kind of thing, but when you want to be sure that your CD will work properly in as many drives as possible, stick with a Sharpie and just say no to sticky labels, that is unless you could use a few new coasters. ; )
Other notes on running the game:
– It’s important to remember too that this is a “disc in” game meaning that during installation, although some files are transferred to your hard drive, it will not transfer all of them, nor is there any option to do so – You will still have to have a CD in the drive (or the .iso file mounted in virtual drive software) every time you wish to play. Note: If you’re using a virtual drive to mount the game, it does not matter where you keep your .iso file. It can be on your hard disk, on a USB drive, or even on an external drive because no matter where it comes from, the drive letter assigned by Windows to your virtual drive remains the same.
If you still find yourself confused and disoriented by all these new-fangled moving parts, but still wanna play this game hella bad, you can send the electronic mails to my interwebs machine. Cute girls in the soft, fuzzy sweaters and anyone looking to part with keys to the DeLorean will be helped with the swiftnesses. If you need the helps, but recently discovered that you aren’t a cute girl in the soft, fuzzy sweaters and are also lacking DeLorean keys, send the sugar cookies to ensure some of the speedy helps. I fucking love those things.
peace, = )
80sDreamer-(^_^)/ 