Restricted Area

[Thorium]

Old game made with PureBasic. One of the few games made with PureBasic sold in stores.

If you want to play it you run into multiple problems.
Here is how you can run it under Windows 10. Probably also Windows 11, didnt test it.

• Apply official Patch 1.10. It will not run otherwise because the copy protection does not work under Windows 10. The patch removes it.
• Download DDrawCompat and copy the ddraw.dll into the Restricted Area directory: https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat
• Set the polling rate of your mouse very low. I needed to set mine to 125hz. Fixes lagging mouse pointer.
• In the launcher, disable videos. The codec used does not work under Windows 10. You can watch the videos via VLC, if you want to.
• Apply following patch via x86dbg: https://github.com/x64dbg/x64dbg

  Code: Select all

  >ra.exe
  000759ED:75->EB
  00075A86:75->EB

  This fixes the outro. Without this patch you can't finish the game with disabled videos and can't progress your character to the next difficulty level.
  Can't provide patched ra.exe because of copyright.

Contrary to what you read elsewhere, you do not need to run it in XP compatibility mode.

[Fred]

Ha, good to know I still have the boxed version somewhere

[Poseidon]

Greetings,

Having spent a lot of time trying to get this game to run, I'm glad to have found your thread. An unlikely place, but it apparently makes sense I never considered what language was the game written in.

Here's a few comments/issues:

• There is no official EN Patch 1.10 as far as I know, it was only ever released for the German version of the game. I can verify that, because I tried patching the .exe as you suggested and failed. Ultimately, I realized the addresses are different as we're clearly using different .exe files

• Any original .exe file should suffer from a pretty much game-breaking bug that makes the game freeze every time you change weapons, pick up an item, etc. It is my suspicion that we're using different localisations, hence the difference in both .exe files and the possibility you don't experience said bug.

• There is a "fixed" version of the .exe on GameCopyWorld, which seems to be the same one that I'm using (my repack of the game came from a Russian tracker. I'm not going to post links, or attach files out of respect for your reservations towards copyright, BUT the game literally cannot be obtained "legally" anywhere, except on physical media, so I'm going to say no one cares about that...)

• Technically the VP3 codec works fine as it is packed with the game (separate installer, but it should be on the CD/IMG)

• Despite being able to play the cutscenes, my game crashes after the 3rd story mission, which does play a cutscene. Whether I enable or disable said cutscene, the crash still happens. This is where I attempted to patch the .exe as I figured it is the same issue as the ending cutscene, but failed hence here I am.

Any help would be welcome. Thanks in advance!

[Thorium]

Greetings,

Having spent a lot of time trying to get this game to run, I'm glad to have found your thread. An unlikely place, but it apparently makes sense I never considered what language was the game written in.

Here's a few comments/issues:

• There is no official EN Patch 1.10 as far as I know, it was only ever released for the German version of the game. I can verify that, because I tried patching the .exe as you suggested and failed. Ultimately, I realized the addresses are different as we're clearly using different .exe files

• Any original .exe file should suffer from a pretty much game-breaking bug that makes the game freeze every time you change weapons, pick up an item, etc. It is my suspicion that we're using different localisations, hence the difference in both .exe files and the possibility you don't experience said bug.

• There is a "fixed" version of the .exe on GameCopyWorld, which seems to be the same one that I'm using (my repack of the game came from a Russian tracker. I'm not going to post links, or attach files out of respect for your reservations towards copyright, BUT the game literally cannot be obtained "legally" anywhere, except on physical media, so I'm going to say no one cares about that...)

• Technically the VP3 codec works fine as it is packed with the game (separate installer, but it should be on the CD/IMG)

• Despite being able to play the cutscenes, my game crashes after the 3rd story mission, which does play a cutscene. Whether I enable or disable said cutscene, the crash still happens. This is where I attempted to patch the .exe as I figured it is the same issue as the ending cutscene, but failed hence here I am.

Any help would be welcome. Thanks in advance!

Hi, yes i did play the german version.
I could not get the cracks from gamecoyworld to work. And 1.10 removes the copy protection.
I tried putting the english translation files into german 1.10 but it breaks a lot of things.
Maybe it could be fixed with some effort.
1.10 works pretty well. There are still some crashes. But they are kind of random and dont happen at a specific point in the campaign. Except for the last cutscene freeze.

The video codec would install for me but did not play the videos anyway. Maybe a problem specific to 1.10.

[Poseidon]

Hi, yes i did play the german version.
I could not get the cracks from gamecoyworld to work. And 1.10 removes the copy protection.
I tried putting the english translation files into german 1.10 but it breaks a lot of things.
Maybe it could be fixed with some effort.
1.10 works pretty well. There are still some crashes. But they are kind of random and dont happen at a specific point in the campaign. Except for the last cutscene freeze.

The video codec would install for me but did not play the videos anyway. Maybe a problem specific to 1.10.

Helloes, thanks for looking into it, much appreciated.

Yeah, I figured the different patches would cause quite a bit of confusion. It's sad when the final official changes to a game don't get distributed to all releases. It's not often that happens, but I can think of at least one other case.

Someone posted on here saying "The creator is on these forums, ask him to update it", but then deleted their post a week or two later. I wonder if the creator saw that and were like "Nah, don't get me involved in this"... If that's the case... Come on, this is like abandoning a child (no I'm not serious, but games were always supposed to be a labor of love and this is a prime example).

As for the videos... Actually I don't think I have the VP3 codec installed, but I do use K-Lite Codec Pack, I wonder if it includes some kind of compatibility codec or an updated version. Not that it matters in my case at least.

The game did make it on GOG Dream List so fingers crossed I guess...

[Thorium]

Someone posted on here saying "The creator is on these forums, ask him to update it", but then deleted their post a week or two later. I wonder if the creator saw that and were like "Nah, don't get me involved in this"... If that's the case... Come on, this is like abandoning a child (no I'm not serious, but games were always supposed to be a labor of love and this is a prime example).

It would be awesome if he just open sourced it.
I guess here are a few people who would be interessted to maintain it.

[IceSoft]

It would be awesome if he just open sourced it.
I guess here are a few peoole who would be interessted to maintain it.

open source? nice idea!