Play Moonstone online

How to install and play Moonstone online

Network play is new and still being tested. Up to four knights can play together, in the original rules (Classic) or as a party (Co-op). Two players are tested first. Parts marked COMING are not in the game yet.

1. What you need

• Your own copy of Moonstone (Mindscape, 1991): the three original disks, or disk images (.adf) made from them. Moonstone ACE contains none of the original game data; it reads everything from your disks.
• An Amiga 1200 (68020, AGA, Kickstart 3.x). Fast RAM is recommended. Or the WinUAE emulator on a PC, set up as an A1200.
• A TCP/IP stack that provides bsdsocket.library: Roadshow, AmiTCP, Genesis or Miami all work. In WinUAE you need no stack at all: tick bsdsocket.library under Settings → Hardware → Expansions.
• A network connection for a real Amiga, for example a PCMCIA Ethernet or WiFi card, a Plipbox on the parallel port, or a serial (PPP) link to a PC.
• A joystick or the keyboard. Each player plays on their own Amiga with a joystick or the keyboard: arrow keys + Ctrl (or right Shift) as fire, or WASD + Alt as fire. Choose it on the knight screen's Control line.
• THEA1200: the game runs on it, but whether its built-in emulator lets games use the network is not known yet.

2. Install

Online play needs the next release. The current download, v0.1.0, plays the full game on one Amiga (up to four knights taking turns) but has no network play yet. The steps below are the same for the coming release. COMING

1. Download the latest moonstone-ace-…-amiga1200.zip from the releases page on GitHub and extract it. It is an Amiga program, not a Windows one, and contains none of the original game.
2. Copy your three original Moonstone disk images (.adf) into the extracted moonstone-ace folder, beside the moonstone program, or into a disks folder inside it. The file names do not matter; the game recognises each disk.
3. Copy the folder to your Amiga hard disk, for example DH0:moonstone-ace, and start it from a Shell with DH0:moonstone-ace/moonstone, or give moonstone a Tool icon and double-click it. In WinUAE, add the folder as a directory hard drive of an A1200 configuration. Full instructions are in the README.
4. Start your TCP/IP stack (Roadshow and the others usually start it from the startup-sequence) and check that the Amiga is online.
5. Start Moonstone. If the stack is not running the game still works, it just cannot play online; the Multiplayer screen then says NO TCP IP STACK.

Every player needs the same game version and the same settings (gore, enhanced graphics, mods). A different version is refused, and the game says which version the host runs.

3. Host a game

1. On the title screen choose Multiplayer, then Name to set your name.
2. Choose Host game. The screen shows Waiting for players and the names of everyone who joins (up to three).
3. Tell the other players your address (see section 5), then press Start when everyone is in.
4. Everyone returns to the title menu, which the host controls: choose Players (Classic) or Coop 2–Coop 4, then Select Knight. Each player steers their own knight with their own joystick or keyboard.

4. Join a game

1. On the title screen choose Multiplayer, set your Name, then Join game.
2. Type the host's Address (numbers and dots, for example 192.168.1.20, or a host name) and the Port (normally 6502), then choose Connect.
3. The status line shows Connected, waiting for host. The game starts when the host presses Start.

From a Shell you can fill in the screen in advance:

moonstone HOST NAME Arthur
moonstone JOIN 192.168.1.20 PORT 6502 NAME Lancelot

Your name, address and port are remembered in net.ini in the game's drawer.

5. Playing over the internet

• Same home network: join with the host's local address (for example 192.168.1.20). Nothing else to set up.
• Over the internet, direct: the host forwards TCP port 6502 on their router to their Amiga (or to the PC running WinUAE) and gives the other players their public IP address.
• Public games and the relay COMING: a Find game screen in the game will list public games (the same list as on this page) and join them with one button. Hosts that cannot forward a port will play through this server's relay, and no IP addresses are handed to strangers.
• All players' machines run the game in step, so a game plays at the pace of the slowest machine and connection.

6. If something goes wrong

The address field accepts letters, numbers and dots only; the game's font has no - or :, which is why the port has its own field.