Getting Our Older Games To Work On Macintosh OS X

Spiderweb Software has quite a few older games which do not currently run natively on OS X. As Apple has updated the operating system, they have removed support for a lot of old programs, ours included. It is unfortunate that Apple has decided to make a lot of our older games not work, and we do what we can to create updated versions that will function. A full description of what games work on what operating systems can be found in our Compatibility Guide.

If you are using a version of OS X 10.5 or later, our Exile games will no longer run. If you are using 10.4 or earlier, you can get them to run, but you will need to use the Classic Environment. What this means is that they will work just fine, but your computer has to have the older Macintosh operating system (OS 9, the "Classic Environment") installed on it.

Fortunately, all Macintoshes with OS X 10.4 or earlier come with the program (the Classic environment, i.e. the old operating system) you need to install to run the older games. Unfortunately, with more recent versions of the OS, Apple has stopped installing it for you. If you install it yourself, the games will work.

To install the old operating system, get the CD "Additional Software and Apple Hardware Test", which came with your computer. Insert it and choose to install OS 9. You will then be able to run all older Macintosh programs.

We have no plans to update the Exile games to make them run natively on OS X. Reworking all of our older programs would take a considerable amount of time, and we need to spend that time making new games, and thus staying in business. We apologize for any trouble this causes, and I'm sure we join you in wishing Apple had not made the recent changes that made this step so difficult.

Also for Mac OS X users, if you are having problems getting our older games to register properly, go into your Classic mode preferences, Advanced tab, and make sure the "Use Mac OS 9 preferences from your home" box in unchecked.