JRH Cricket Box
Cricket Box plays the old DOS games you already own, on a modern Windows computer, without you having to understand anything about how that works. Point it at a game, press Play, and play.
Cricket Box does not include any games.
It plays the ones you already own — the folders and discs you have kept, or the copies you have bought from a shop that sells old games. Nothing else is included, and nothing is downloaded for you.
You will see a blue box. This is normal.
When you run the installer, Windows will probably stop and show a blue screen saying “Windows protected your PC”. Nothing is wrong. Windows shows this for any program from a small independent maker that has not paid for a code-signing certificate, and Cricket Box has not. Here is how to get past it.
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The blue box appears. There is no obvious way forward, because the Don’t run button is the only one you can see. Look for the small More info link and click it.
Windows protected your PCMicrosoft Defender SmartScreen prevented an unrecognised app from starting.
More info ◀ click thisDon’t run -
The box grows, and a Run anyway button appears. Click it, and the installer starts normally.
Windows protected your PCApp: JRH_Cricket_Box_Setup_0.0.14.exe
Publisher: Unknown publisherRun anyway Don’t run▲ click this
Games Cricket Box already knows
Cricket Box plays any DOS game you own. For some it also knows the right settings without being asked, so they simply work: the Ultima series, Sid Meier’s Colonization, Master of Magic, and the nine SSI Gold Box AD&D games — Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Hillsfar, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, and Unlimited Adventures in English and German.
If you have an old drive full of old files
Plenty of people who kept their games also kept a backup of a whole old computer. Those drives are mostly not games: DOS itself, a sound card driver, a word processor, a disk tool. So Cricket Box shows you only the games it recognises. Everything else it found is folded away behind a small “Show other programs I found” link, where you can look if you think a game was missed — and it asks before adding anything it doesn’t know. Anything you never want to see again can be hidden with one click.
Richer music, the keys on screen, and new maps
For Sid Meier’s Colonization and Master of Magic, Enhanced music plays the game’s own score on richer instruments, using the free GeneralUser GS sound set by S. Christian Collins, which comes with Cricket Box. Sound effects are not changed, and Original puts everything back exactly as it was. Settings can set the music for every game at once.
While you play either of those games, press F11 to see what the keys do, screen by screen. Every key on the list was tried in the game. You can also print the list from the game’s button.
Colonization also gets four JRH Maps drawn from real geography: the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, North America’s East Coast, South America, and the whole Americas drawn to their true size. Each one was opened in the game’s own map editor and played for more than 20 turns before it was shipped. Choose one from Colonization’s button; your saved games are never changed. The maps were made with Natural Earth’s free, public-domain map data.
If the power goes out in the middle of a game
While you play, Cricket Box quietly copies your saved games every five minutes whenever they change, as well as when you finish. If the power goes, or the plug comes out, you lose minutes rather than an evening, and next time Cricket Box tells you when your saves were last backed up.
What Cricket Box sends over the internet
Once a day, if “Check for updates” is switched on in Settings, Cricket Box asks zelphuria.com for one small file that says what the newest version is, and one that carries updated notes about games. That is an ordinary web request and nothing else.
It sends no personal information, no list of the games you own, and nothing that identifies you or your computer. Nothing is ever downloaded and installed by itself. You can switch the whole thing off in Settings.
For the technically curious
Credits
Cricket Box plays these games using DOSBox Staging, an emulator made by the DOSBox Staging team. It is not mine, I have not changed it, and it is used here under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. Its complete source code is at github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging.
Everything else — the program, the cricket, and this page — is my own work.
Tell me about a game
Cricket Box only knows about a handful of games so far. If you know of an official patch it does not list, or a game it does not recognise, tell me here and I will add it. Updated game notes reach everybody within a day, without anyone reinstalling anything.