Amiga games

(I’m terrible with computers and can’t be bothered to read a massive block of text.)

FS-UAE is a relatively user-friendly Amiga emulator. That said, the Amiga wasn’t a single model but rather a series of computers (Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, Amiga 1200, etc.) developed over a significant period of time (we’re focusing on the 1985–1995 decade), with evolving components and configurations. Consequently, it would be necessary to tweak the software differently depending on the game you want to run and the configuration it was originally designed for (amount of memory, number of floppy drives, presence or absence of a hard drive, etc.).

The quirk with Amiga emulators is that not all the files essential for their operation come bundled with them, due to copyright reasons. Even though Commodore, the original manufacturer, went bankrupt in 1994, various commercial licenses were acquired, and programs related to the Amiga operating system are still being sold today. For the casual gamer, the missing file we’re talking about is called “Kickstart”. Originally, it was a boot disk, but its modern form is a file with the “.rom” extension.

There are about a hundred versions of Kickstart (numbered between 1.0 and 3.1). I mainly use two:

• Kickstart 1.3 (to run games released between roughly 1985 and 1992)
• Kickstart 3.1 (for games released after 1992)

The catch is that the emulator’s authors aren’t allowed to distribute them, and of course, I’m not allowed to make them available for download on this site. However, YOU are allowed to buy them!

The legal way to get these Kickstarts is to purchase the “official” emulator, Amiga Forever (priced at 30 euros). This will save you the embarrassment of typing “Amiga Kickstart ROM download” into a search engine.

Without a Kickstart, FS-UAE will still try to launch the game, but the risk of failure or crashing is high.

If you want to use pre-configured setups (the easy solution described later), it’s better to download all the versions you can find, once and for all. The software will automatically pick the exact Kickstart version it needs (depending on the game).

Head over to fs-uae.net to download the version compatible with your system. I use the latest stable version (3.0.2 at the time of writing), the first link provided, with its pre-configured “launcher”.

Install the thing wherever you want. It will create an “FS-UAE” folder (on Windows 10, in “Documents”) containing subfolders. I suggest putting your Kickstart files in the folder of the same name.

Launch “FS-UAE Launcher” and click on the icon in the top left corner of the screen:

Select “Settings” or “Paramètres”. The option to switch to French is right at the top. I won’t go into the nitty-gritty of the options (video, controller/mouse/keyboard settings), which seem pretty self-explanatory and entirely up to your preferences.

In the “Game Database” section, change “Available and Downloadable Games” to “Available Games”.

Close the options window and click on the icon in the top left again. Select “Import Kickstarts” and follow the instructions.

Don’t move on to the next step until you see green dots next to the main Amiga models (Amiga 1000, 500, 500+, 600, and 1200, which run the vast majority of games).

Click on the icon a third time and select “Log In / Register”. Create an account on the Open Retro Game Database site. It’s quick and will save you a lot of time when setting up a new game. As in, you won’t have to set anything up at all!

Once you’ve downloaded a game and put it in the right folder, click the icon once more, then “Update Database File”. Add the folder where you store your Amiga games (if it’s not already listed) and click “Scan.”

Select the game in the left window, then click “Start”. During the game, press “F12” to bring up the emulator’s menu (exit, save, change disk, etc.).

If you see the message “Using Replacement Kickstart ROM” at the bottom of the window, it means your Kickstart isn’t recognized. Find the missing Kickstart and re-scan, or tinker with the “Amiga Model” option until that message goes away.

Just a heads up, we’re reaching the limits of my immeasurable expertise here…

Installing games on a hard drive saves you from swapping floppies constantly and significantly reduces load times. The procedure is especially complex (and out of reach for novices), but user communities have indexed and shared pre-configured games. Just download them from WHDownLoad, put them in a folder, then scan that folder as I showed you in the previous section.

In some cases, additional files might be required. I haven’t dabbled much with this feature. My current method is to throw anything even remotely related to the Amiga OS (Kickstarts, Workbench, uppercase letters, numbers, weird extensions) into a folder and run a scan on it. FS-UAE hasn’t asked me for anything else since. It’s happy, and so am I.

The following method has its risks. Pre-installed programs like these can include unwanted files (viruses, ads…). The choice is yours: make an effort or take a chance.

Go to Gamesnostalgia.com.
Type the game’s name into the search box at the top right, then click “search”.
Open the game page. At the bottom, you’ll find two download links (for PC or Mac).
The downloaded file needs to be unzipped (using 7Zip, for example).

Take note of where you extract the game’s folder. Double-click it, then double-click the file named after the game. A black window will open—press a key and wait 30 seconds.

To play, use the arrow keys and the “Ctrl” key. To quit, press “F12”, then “up arrow”, then “Enter”.