Realmz: "Abandoned Freeware" RPG
 

Realmz: "Abandoned Freeware" RPG

Well this is most peculiar case.

Realmz is indie Mac/Windows RPG from 1994, with official scenarios/expansions being released up to 2002.

It was developed by a guy called Tim Phillips and published through his company Fantasoft.
(He also published some games for other Mac Indie Developers, including the original Exile Trilogy by Jeff Vogel.)

In November 2008, Tim Phillips released the full version of Realmz (Mac & Windows) as a free download. Plus the registration numbers for the commercial scenarios/expansions made available to everyone on the Realmz Yahoo Group.

However, Fantasoft's website has since expired.

Links:
Realmz Wiki Page
Fantasoft Website (Expired)
Archive of the Site

https://fantasoft.powweb.com

Thanks for pointing us to this title, I don't recall it. Moby's doesn't have an entry about it either.

Wow, the game looks really neat. I haven't heard about it before too (this may be attributed to my general lack of knowledge in the RPG genre though), but it seems to be all right :D

...or to the fact that it was primarily a Mac game, and shareware to boot.

A list of the Scenarios:

1. City Of Bywater (developed alongside Realmz by Tim Phillips) [Code Available]
2. Prelude To Pestilence (1995, Sean Sayrs) [Code Available]
3. Assault On Giant Mountain (1995, Tim Phillips) [Code Available]
4. Castle in The Clouds (1995, Jim Foley) [Code Available]
5. Destroy The Necronomicon (1995, Tim Phillips) [Code Available]
6. White Dragon (1996, Jim Foley) [Code Available]
7. Grilochs Revenge (1997, Sean Sayrs) [Code Available]
8. Twin Sands of Time (1999, Sean Sayrs) [Not Released?]
9. Trouble in the Sword Lands (1999, Pierre H. Vachon) [Code Available]
10. Mithril Vault (1999, Tim Phillips) [Code Available]
11. Half Truth (2000, Tremordred) [Not Released?]
12. War in the Sword Lands (2000, Pierre H. Vachon) [Not Released?]
13. Wrath of the Mind Lords (2002, Pierre H. Vachon) [Not Released?]


Evidently, the idea behind them was something similar to the later “Premium Modules” for NWN.
Third party created new Official Campaigns, which were sold through the Fantasoft Website.

All the Registration Codes for them (except the 4 in red) were posted around the same time the game became free...

Haven't tried it out yet but the graphics looks really fine. Reminds me of Warlords II deluxe edition somewhat, but it seems to be even better :) Nice old school stuff ^_^

[Edit] Found functional download links for the PC and Mac versions, plus some extras:
http://digiex.net/downloads/download...ws-mac-os.html

Okay, the downloads at Fantasoft official website's mirror only seemed not to work because they forgot to update their links at the downloads page. The correct links should be as follows:

Realmz v7.1.2 Demo for Windows
Realmz v7.1.2 Demo for MacOS
Realmz Version 7.x.x to 7.1.2 Update for Windows
Realmz Version 7.x.x to 7.1.2 Update for MacOS
Realmz Version 7.1.2 to 8.0.7 Update for MacOS

Welcome everyone to a game called Realmz.

Realmz is a top-down party-based tactical computer RPG heavily inspired by Dungeons & Dragons and many other RPGs of the time. (So much so that early versions had artwork ripped from TSR and features like character alignment and the actual D&D ability score names.) What set it aside from other RPGs was the open-ended world and the scenario editing tools which let users create and also sell their own scenarios.

Anyway, time has not been good to the game. It runs poorly in Windows, and not much better on the Mac side (not at all in Mac OS X). The interface is cluttered and can be confusing for new people. The scenario editing tools are pretty tough to slog through, but was still powerful at the time, being able to add and edit monsters, items, spells, even races and characters.

Tim has pretty much fallen off the face of the earth. I know he was in central Wisconsin and then moved to Florida, then who knows. Not much is known about him; a person named “Skip” had assumed maintenance of the web site. A few years ago he opened up registration codes for the core game and a few of the default scenarios.

People have wanted to port Realmz but lingering copyright issues will probably prevent that from ever happening; art was done by other people and many of the scenarios are contributions made by others. You may also notice some resources were shared between it and Spiderweb’s Exile series. (Fantasoft was once a publisher for Spiderweb’s early Exile series. Jeff Vogel I’m sure knows more about this relationship.)

Tim had also released a game called New Centurions which was like Realmz but in a Sci-Fi setting. It is very hard to find these days, but if you do find it, I’d love to see it here.

A great place to still talk Realmz is at the Realmz Castle Yahoo! Group.

Hello ancestral! I understand that you have been closely involved in development/production and/or the fan community, right? Have you known Tim Philips personally?

MrFlibble, I have been an avid fan of the game and on the fan mailing list for at least 15 years (and before it moved to the Yahoo group) though never a contributor. Mostly I was a bit too young to be able to contribute at the time ;-)

There are still some folks around on the Yahoo group who used to contribute. If you have questions feel free to poke them.

It’s quite odd, but no one knows what happened to Tim. I don’t think most people knew him personally. There were no game forums or any direct contact other than email. He’s never appeared nor communicated to anyone, except Skip Meier, who took over maintenance of the site and registration code system. I know he knows something, how much who knows, but remains enigmatic and protective of his personal affairs — which I can respect.

He’s hinted that Tim had lost interest entirely and still remains aloof. Honestly I can only speculate that this is perhaps due to a sudden life change (debilitating health due to an accident, illness, family issues, etc.)

In the end it almost doesn’t matter. The content is still copyrighted, but the game is free to download, play, and distribute. Some people have had success running the game in Mac emulation software (in fact, I’m trying to load it using Basilisk but running into disk image issues).