I just found out what happens if you try to play Return to Dark Castle after a 30-day break and when you are without an internet connection:



In other words, you can't! What a terrible, awful system Super Happy Fun Fun has in place. The serial number check every 30 days is just stupid. I bought the game, but they assume I'm a thief and won't let me even play the game. Not everyone has internet access all the time.

EDIT: I played around with this some more... it looks like if the game says you need to reactivate and you don't have an internet connection, you can change the date back to less than 30 days from the last time you activated and it'll run. Not a good solution, but it'll work.

Yup, I chose the option to activate my copy from a different computer, now EVERY TIME I go to play I have to enter that loooovely 52 letter/number activation code.

I gotta write SHFF an email when I get some free time, it makes me not want to play the game.

And for THIS we waited how much extra time for the game to be released??? :BKfist:


:Fireball: :Fireball: :Fireball:

I discovered this when I fired up DC on the plane a few days ago. Nope. What a joke! This type of thing is just another reason people are driven to piracy that would otherwise pay. I waited a long time for this game and think it was worth every penny but talk about a major disappointment when facing 8 hours of sitting on a plane.

I'm going on a train tomorrow for 6 hours, but I need to remember to make sure I re-activate the game tonight or else I won't be able to play it. What a hassle. I probably won't even bother. I haven't even wanted to play the game since I found out about this problem... it has sadly really turned me off to Return to Dark Castle after waiting so long.

Well, as I said earlier, the stupid thing is that the pirate versions will just have the copy protection stripped out of them; so (given you have to pay before you can legally get the binary anyway) it really is only around to hassle paid up users. :( So I re-iterate my comments about SHFF not having a clue.

FWIW, I have actually even found and tested such a patched version. No, I'm not saying where from, and yes, I've already let Zack know about it...

Really? So soon?


It's good of you to let Zack know, hopefully he can break it with the new patch?

I downloaded the demo, did the tutorial and played for a few minutes, then quit the game before dinner. When I tried to start it again later this evening, I got an error message (Unable to create a new "DC3 Prefs" file.) and the game wouldn't open. So I came here to find out if there is a fix. I'm glad I found this thread because it appears the answer is to not bother with this game.

Really too bad because I love these side scrolling rpg games, and this one looked like fun for the few minutes I got to play it.

I dunno about not bother, this game, at least in my eyes, is probably the best 2D Side scroller to come out for computer in recent years.

As for your problems, are you the admin user for the computer? Did you sign into a different user since you last played?

That seems a little harsh a judgement - I don't think many people have come up with that solution.

Anyway, DC3 writes its preferences file to:

~/Library/Preferences/DC3 Prefs.plist

You should make sure that said file is writeable by you. It may also be that it was somehow corrupted, so you could try deleting it (or moving it say to your desktop) and starting DC3 again.

(`~' means your home folder by the way in unix-speak)

Darn! I had a lengthy reply composed, then you posted the fix: turns out the DC3 Prefs.plist file was in the user Library folder instead of the Library > Preferences folder :blink:

I dragged it into the prefs folder and Voila!

Thank you Richard.

Here's the last bit of my unposted post:

"I was really annoyed last night with such an abrupt halt to what promises to be a great game. I'm willing to give it a chance, in spite of the 'phone home' policy, which I wouldn't have a problem with if it didn't interfere with a legitimate customer's experience."

You're welcome - as to the phoning home and copy protection implementation; I think most people agree that it is ... disappointing.

I need to make a macro or something to type in my activation code, I can't be typing in all sorts of letters and numbers every time...

I've went from playing DC3 once or more a day to MAYBE once a week because of this.

Can anyone point me in the direction of some free software that'll let me achieve this?

GUI scripting is a PitA - QuickKeys used to do it quite well...

The registraction related shite is stored in `EWSMacCompress.tar.gz' inside the main data folder. Goodness only knows why it is `tar.gz'd. Sadly, there is no obvious .nib file for the code entry screen that I saw on quick glance. Otherwise the easy thing to do would simply be to hack the nib file to add your credentials as the default entry into the fields...

But I thought it only asked you for the information once every so often anyway?

Nope, I had to register from another computer because my "Mac" that I play on doesn't have ethernet or wifi drivers yet. I believe it was after 30 days when it started asking me on every launch.

I'm not really left with a lot of options sadly, I can enter the activation every time (which I don't have enough motivation to do), have something else enter it for me, or turn to... ...alternative methods...

EDIT: yikes, quick keys is 80 bucks, too steep for me.

heh - sounds like you are asking for it anyway. Perhaps a real mac would be a good option at this stage... you know windoze suk0rz right? :P

p.s. It has been a long time since I played with either, but AppleScript or Automator might possibly get you out of your problem.

Hey! :angry:

I do have a MBP, well my girl does, I'll probably get broken fingers if I play with it. Let's not start the whole winblowz-macintrash argument though. <3

I'll just investigate further myself. Read a few articles and follow a few tutorials, I'll come up with something.

Thanks for the suggestions. :)