I realize Hillsfar is not a well-designed game. No one ever thought it was, as far as I can tell. Nonetheless, I am interested in playing it, because, according to Stephen S. Lee, importing a character who won Hillsfar is the only way to get three journal entries in Curse of the Azure Bonds. So...

Saving the game is difficult while playing Hillsfar. I understand that some forms of DOSBox allow save states. However, I do not know if the form GOG uses allows this or how I might switch to a form (or any workable emulator) that does. This is an area of computing that I'm kind of new to. Any help you be appreciated.

Ok, first of all, I have no experience with working with save states, so I can't answer your question.

Are you doing this to record it, or do you just have a burning desire to see those adventurer's journal entries pop up in game for some reason? I don't begrudge someone wanting to figure out how to play an older game if they want to play it, but if the only reason is so you can see the journal entries pop up in a different game when you can just read them out of the manual....

As bizarre as it sounds, you are absolutely right. I really do have a burning desire to see all the journal entries pop in the games. Yes, of course, I know I can read them in the manual. I've done so many times. However, I had no idea that these three entries were actually in Curse at all (a game I've played before) and I'm trying to see as much of the gold box games as possible.

So...thanks, but I'm still interested in save states, not just for Hillsfar but for any other games I might play where they could be useful.

Best hit I'm getting is a custom version of Doxbox called Dosbox-X. You'd have to do your own configuration, but I'd imagine it has similar flexibility to a standard Doxbox build.

Thanks. I'll have to look into whether I can actually configure the thing, but I appreciate you trying to help.

I don't want to be a troll and I'm not trying to be obnoxious, but I've just had a frustrating experience with GOG tech support.

I emailed GOG to see if I could get help with the save states in DOSBox issue. This is the exact message I sent them:

"The game Hillsfar has a very poor saving feature. I've heard it is possible to use save states in some forms of DOSBox. Is that possible with the version used by GOG, and, if not, what version could I use with GOG games that might have it?

Thank you"

This is what I got in return:

Thank you for your message.

"Please describe the issue with saves in more detail. If possible, please record a short video illustrating this issue. You can use Windows Game Bar functionality for that. This guide could be helpful:

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/how-to-video-screen-capture-windows-10

The video can be uploaded to YouTube.com, or DropBox.com and then you can share the link to it with us.


Looking forward to your reply."

It appears from the reply that GOG doesn't understand the issue at all or even know what save states are. I've had not helpful responses from GOG tech support before, though occasionally they've given me good advice.

Is there any suggestion on what I can do?

I had a strategy guide for the NES game. First thing that guide waxed eloquent about was getting a Rod of Blasting for the riding segments. To get one, it suggested keep breaking into homes and getting chests until you find one (of course, that means you have to get good at that mini-game as well). I also suggest playing the NES version and getting used to the riding segments to reduce your frustration with them, though I've only ever played the NES version. That should make these segments easier for you to get to the came and save.

The other issue you'll probably want to save state through is arena combat. Each combatant has a pattern, not that that helped me much.

Unfortunately, because I plan to transfer my character to Curse once I've won Hillsfar, I probably can't use the NES version. Thanks for the advice, but if I'm going to use save states, it's going to have to be with a PC emulator like DOSBox.

In other words, you might master the game to the point it doesn't matter if you practice on the NES version.