Is it possible to play my old "Ceremony of Innocence" CD ROM?

July 13, 2015 2:05 PM

Back in the stone age (the late '90's), I bought an interactive CD ROM titled Ceremony of Innocence. I loved it. I'd like to play it again.

Is there any way I can do that now, aside from running it on an old computer running Windows 95? I presently have a PC running Windows 7, and I sense an upgrade to Windows 10 in my future.

I believe the interactive CD-ROM was made to run with either Flash or Shockwave, back when they were both part of Macromedia.

posted by cleverevans to Technology (6 answers total)

My guess it was done in Pre-Shockwave Macromedia Director. You may need to rip the files off the disc onto your HD, but they should play as long as you have shockwave installed. There's a Director Player you can grab if that doesn't work.
posted by Oktober at 2:08 PM on July 13, 2015

You could install Windows 95 (if you could find a copy) onto a virtual machine. A lot of people run old games that way.
posted by irisclara at 3:18 PM on July 13, 2015

If it really doesn't work as-is (can you clarify what happens?), I would probably try to emulate this, using a windows 95 install in a VirtualBox (or similar emulator). I doubt it will be that impacted by being emulated, on a modern computer. You could also try Sheepshaver if you have or can get an appropriate MacOS (9?) install disk, it looks like that CD might have both versions of the game on it.
posted by advil at 3:22 PM on July 13, 2015

If you have Win7 Professional or Ultimate, there's an official WinXP emulator ("Windows XP Mode"). Microsoft also offers VM images of WinXP for "browser testing" that you can use in Virtualbox.

I assume you already tried Windows 95 compatibility mode in Win7? You might be surprised at what works. WinXP ought to work if Win7 doesn't.

If it's from the late 90s it was likely Shockwave (aka Macromedia Director). Poke around for .DCR files -- you might be able to play them using Shockwave Player, although I haven't messed around with that stuff in years so I'm not sure if Adobe even offers that anymore. If the files are self-contained you should even be able to run them via the browser plugin, although this won't work if they load other assets from the CDROM.
posted by neckro23 at 3:32 PM on July 13, 2015

These sites may be of help - Windows, Mac.
posted by unliteral at 10:32 PM on July 13, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks to all. I believe there are enough suggestions here to pursue in order to consider this question answered.
posted by cleverevans at 12:01 PM on July 14, 2015