*Solved*: Aliens Comic Book Adventure

[AutumnSounds]

Hi all! Digging out my old DOS games and installing in LaunchBox (I LOVE this!). But Having trouble with Aliens - Comic book adventure. Issue: The game installs via LaunchBox just fine, the CUE/BIN is created and the install directory seems fine. However, the application exe to launch the game is on the disk(CUE) in x:\aliens\aliens.exe. I've tried the following in a .bat;

mount d d:\ -t cdrom d:\aliens aliens.exe

But I'm not having any luck. (I added the mount command after not having luck getting to d: since I figured it's because it's not mounted at time of clicking 'play') I'm sure there's something super obvious I'm missing, but it eludes me. Any help would be appreciated! - Side question... CD 2, how do I go about getting that mounted within LaunchBox?

[Jason Carr]

Hi @AutumnSounds, you might not be able to use the wizard for that game. A batch file won't work for the application EXE, but what you can do is leave the application path blank, and then put the custom commands in the DOSBox configuration. When you edit the game, in the DOSBox tab, you can create a custom configuration for the game. Then when you edit the configuration, under the DOS tab there is an Autoexec section; that's where you put in the commands. Keep in mind that the CD should already be mounted, assuming that you've added it to the mounts tab. As for swapping discs, you can add both discs to the mounts tab under the same drive letter. Then there's a keyboard shortcut in DOSBox to swap discs; I don't remember what it is but a quick search should find it. :) Let me know if you need more help and I can answer your questions.

[AutumnSounds]

Jason, you're a star! The custom config is definitely the right track, I think. Big 'however' though, is that any commands run in there are entered before the image is mounted. (see image below) I'd have no problems removing the CUE from LaunchBox's Mounts (in the game) and just copy the IMGMOUNT command shown, before the attempts to CD directorys, in the image. But I've been keeping everything on my OneDrive (gotta fill that free 1TB of space somehow!) so I can have my games synced on my PC and my Laptop. I'm not sure if the path will work with just IMGMOUNT D "..\Games\MS-DOS\etc.cue" so I don't have to have set drive letters? -=-=- Ctrl+F4 = Changes disc image in DosBox apparently <3 -=-=- Thanks SO much for your continued help and such an AWESOME application!

[Jason Carr]

Hmm, good point lol. I think you should be able to use relative paths to mount the file, yes. I think you'll want to make the path relative to the LaunchBox root folder. :)

[AutumnSounds]

Solved! Aliens: A Comic Book Adventure, when installed, keeps the executables on the disc rather than the HDD. Solution steps: * Install game as-per-normal within LaunchBox. * Edit game in LaunchBox desktop and remove the IMAGE from the MOUNTS tab.

* Create two batch tiles (use any txt editor and save the extension as .bat) -- We could edit the DosBox configuration for this game only under dos 'DOS' tab, but we need to be able to get to the SETUP.exe

ALIENS.bat (Change 'Aliens_Comic Book Adventure' to your install name)
IMGMOUNT D "..\..\LaunchBox\Games\MS-DOS\Aliens_Comic Book Adventure\Aliens_Comic Book Adventure.cue" -t iso -fs iso d: cd aliens aliens.exe

SETUP.bat
IMGMOUNT D "..\..\LaunchBox\Games\MS-DOS\Aliens_ Comic Book Adventure\Aliens_ Comic Book Adventure.cue" -t iso -fs iso d: cd aliens setup.exe

* You can now edit the game in LaunchBox, in tab 'Launcher' you can now point the application path and the Configuration path to the batch files you've created.
* Pop in CD 2 and create an image for that.

Tips for running the game:
* Don't auto-detect audio cards and use standard Sound Blaster.
* Change discs in DosBox with Ctrl+F4 where needed.

** Can this thread please be renamed from 'Help Required' to *SOLVED*. Hope it helps others!

Edited August 12, 2018 by AutumnSounds
Layout / formatting since forum update ages ago.

[SentaiBrad]

Wow, thank you very much for sharing this! We certainly appreciate it!

[Jason Carr]

Thank you, @AutumnSounds. Title changed. :)

[PerryRhodan]

There's a patch for this game that copies the .exe to the Aliens directory. Look for it on 'Myabandoware'. I still can't get the game to run though as I keep getting bad install?