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H o m e / W h a t / R e a l m z
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What is Realmz? Realmz is a shareware fanatasy role playing game written by Tim Phillips for the Macintosh (or MacOS compatible machines). There is no version for the PC and there never will be.

In my opinion, Realmz is the greatest fantasy role playing game ever written for the Macintosh. It was voted Best Shareware Game by MacUser magazine in 1995 and awarded the Golden Mouse for best shareware adventure game in the Swedish edition of MacWorld. Don't take my word for it, here's what reviewers have to say:

"[Realmz] plunges you into a world of crypts, dungeons, and castles, where your job is basically to seek out adventure. It has developed a cult following that many commercial offerings would envy"
"Realmz is a truly elegant role-playing adventure game which rivals many commercial offerings in the genre. The whole game is very well-developed, and ... If you are a fantasy adventure game buff, you cannot miss out on this ..."
"This is the best Dungeons and Dragons-style shareware we've seen yet."
-- c|net.
"Realmz is a commercial quality Fantasy Role Playing game that ... has an interface second to none. [...] It's THAT good."
"Realmz offers the best RPG action on the Mac or PC... Realmz offers the most items, the most monsters, the most spells, and the most replayability, and the best graphics on the shareware RPG market."
"VERY elaborate!" (They have chosen Realmz to be among the TOP 15 Macintosh Games - Commercial OR Shareware)
"Realmz is a rather well known RPG in the macintosh world, ... The greatest of detail is taken [in comparison to some comercial product] ... lot more customisable too..." (They rated Realmz with a score of 9 out of 10 "Apples" overall)
Realmz, as a software product, is praised in most any circles of discussion for the following reasons:
  • User Support: The author of Realmz is quick to respond to the comments of the end-user. Bug reports are quickly dealt with and patches are released regularly.
  • User Interface: Realmz has a powerful and intuitive user interface. You won't find a better interface in a commercial game.
  • Improvements: The author of Realmz continues to release new features and improvements. Once registered, users are never asked to buy new releases or upgrades.


Below are links to various sites that have are relevant to Realmz, [disclaimer:] most of which are "UN-official" sites, just the work of dedicated fanatics like myself.

This page has been visited view this image to make your visit count times since April 18, 1996
INTERVIEWS WITH TIM AND JIM
YES! You read correctly. I have conducted interviews with Tim Phillips, creator of Realmz and Jim Foley, author of the scenarios Castle in the Clouds and Search for the White Dragon. Read all about them here!

OFFICIAL FANTASOFT WEB SITE
Well, here it is! At long last! The long awaited one and only Official Fantasoft web site. Here you can find all the latest downloads for Realmz and information about their latest development and other Fantasoft products. (Fantasoft logo is copyright Fantasoft, LLC.)

BILL FERGERSON'S REALMZ FAQ AND FILES PAGE
The first and foremost of the Realmz pages. Contains FAQs, tip sheets, files, and links to the other sites.

JIM FOLEY'S REALMZ FILES PAGE
Jim is the author of the Realmz scenario "Castle in the Clouds" and "Search for the White Dragon". Jim maintains this page, which contains the latest news and some images.

MAX FELLWALKER'S REALMZ SKETCHBOOK PAGE
Have you ever read the comic book/graphic novel "Sandman"? Well... Max is sorta... Death. Well... she looks a lot like Death... uh... why don't you visit Max's home page and let her explain. In any case, she is the talented artist that produces the nifty graphics for Realmz. The sketch to the right is a sample of her work. Check out her page to see some more of the beasts and demons that your characters may never live long enough to see. (The sketch to the right is copyright 1995 by Max S. Fellwalker and is used with her permission. All rights reserved.)

DAVE GRAYSON'S BOOKS OF REALMZ
Dave is one of the latest Realmz entries into the World Wide Web. His pages contain "The Books of Realmz" which are the most comprehensive listing of beasts, blades, and other stuff found in Realmz.

DONNACHA O'CONNELL'S REALMZ ISLAND
Donnacha's Realmz Island page is a recent entry in the Realmz of Web pages. Included within these pages, you will find information about races and classes, on-line comment book, a few update patches and scenarios, and more. Much of the work contained in this site is mirrored from Bill's Realmz Page, but there's lots of original work to. This site is located in Ireland and will save you lots of bandwidth problems if you are browsing from the British Isles.

VERDON [VERN] VAILLANCOURT'S REALMZ PAGE
Vern's web page has been around for a while, but there wasn't much to speak of until now. He's got all the latest driver and scenario files, plus he has his own custom replacement graphics for the 3-D dungeon views. Vern has replaced the boring dungeon graphics with new eye-popping graphics. There are torches on the walls, wood details, and stone textures on the walls, ceilings, and floor, and it is overall brighter than the dungeons in Realmz. Download this file if you want to a different look and feel in your dungeons. You can also preview the graphics on Vern's quick tour page.

LANE [TROUBADOR] FOULK'S REALMZ PAGE
Here is a new page from Lane "The Troubador" Foulk. Herein, you'll find some MOD files specially selected for Realmz, the "X-Files" Realmz replacement interface, and the usual links to everyone else. Lane has already named each file appropriately (well, as appropriate as you find his sense of each MOD's "mood" and his taste in music), so all you have to do is download it, unstuff it, and drop it in your Realmz Music folder. These files are stored as .SIT files, so Netscape users may have to use the Option-Click trick to let Netscape know to download it. If you have trouble downloading them, I've BinHex'd them and put them in my Realmz Archive (under the "mods" directory) for your convenience. They're all pretty good, except for "Teasure Music" (IMHO) which sounds like you're on a game show or playing a Japanese video game.

GORDON ALFORD'S REALMZ PAGE IN NEW ZEALAND
Gordon's page has all the Realmz files you need to get yourself up and Realmzing. His page is definitely useful if you're "down under" and looking to save time and bandwidth downloading Realmz files.

MICHAEL STAHL REALMZ PAGE
Michael has a pretty nice page, but even better if you can or prefer to read German(? but I don't). As far as I know, this is the only page in German. (However I don't think the web-site is in Germany, and the download links appear to be in Switzerland. Go figure.)

ALLAN CROSSMAN'S REALMZ PAGE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
In my endless search for Realmz pages on the web, here is Allan Crossman's entry into the RealmzWeb. For those in the UK looking for a faster download, here's your site. He's got the latest scenarios, tip sheets, and some MOD files.

MARK TTRIMMER'S REALMZ PAGE
Mark Trimmer's added a new page to the Realmz-net. He's got the usual links, plus links to the software, to the scenario tip sheets, as well as a collection of his own characters.

IVANS CHOU'S REALMZ FAQ
Oh... that's me! Well, here you'll find my latest revision of my Frequently Asked Questions file. >>>Warning<<<: It's a pretty big file, so people with slow links may be slightly annoyed, but it includes scenario specific tips as well as the "Realmz Hacker's Guide" so I think it will be worth your time to download it. If you would rather download the ASCII text or stand-alone document versions of my Realmz FAQ use these links. To quickly jump to the section you want to read, use this link to the FAQ Table of Contents and Index of Keywords. Also, here's a link to the "official" Destroy the Necronomicon Tip Sheet, Search for the White Dragon Tip Sheet, and Griloch's Revenge Tip Sheet that I HTMLized for your viewing convenience.

ERIC JENNINGS' REALMZ PAGE
Eric Jennings' Realmz page is one of many from his Battlegrounds web site, dedicated to RPG's. Other games featured here are Marathon and Warcraft. His pages are worthy of mention for their many graphics, a couple of FAQ's (from Bill's Pages, I think), and of course the links to everyone else's Realmz pages. The dark text makes it a little hard to read.

MACINTOSH ADVENTURE GAMES NEWSGROUP
This is the news group in which a lot of Realmz news is discussed. If you have a question and can't get one of the above gurus to help you via e-mail, then this is the forum for you to ask your question(s). You will be promptly pelted with e-mail or follow-up posts.

Realmz Download Area

  • Ivans Chou's Custom Names
    With the advent of version 4.2, users can customize the names of races, castes, and spells in Realmz. Here is a copy of the file I use. Download it, decode and expand it, and drop it into your Realmz Data folder. The spell names were returned as closely as possible to the 2.x days with a few renamings of things that I had wanted to see in Realmz for a long time, so I took this opportunity to do so. If you're annoyed at the names of things but didn't want to spend all that time to fix them all yourself, then grab this file as a starting point. (Also check out my Realmz Archive for other files.)

  • Ivans Chou's Realmz Portraits
    This is my Realmz Portraits file. This file is based on the original Portraits from Realmz version 1.2.2 with additional portraits stolen from Quanah S. Harjo and Michael Autrey's Realmz Portrait file because there were fewer total portraits back in version 1.2.2. All portraits in this file are 32 by 32 pixels. I have shrunk the portraits stolen from QSH and MA to maintain homogeneity (because some really good-looking big portraits mixed in with a bunch of dinky small ones looks kinda stupid.). Included in this file is the original "bimbo of Realmz". If you've played version 1.2.2 you'll remember her picture. (Also check out my Realmz Archive for other files.)

  • Tyler & Jesse Todd's Realmz Portraits
    Tyler and Jesse have scanned and put together an eclectic but interesting collection of character portraits. Images range from familiar faces of DragonLance and the old AD&D books to Gen 13 images. Pick up your copy here.

  • Kiki Decker's Realmz Portraits and icons
    Kiki Decker [no relation to Rick "The Venerable Master" Decker] has drawn a few realmz portraits and icons which can be added to the Realmz Portrait file. There's even a portrait that's Kiki herself.

  • Phoenixsoft, Inc.'s R.I.F.L.E.
    This is the "Realmz Inter-Face Lift Expansion". This file contains replacement graphics for the buttons and surfaces, which are plain grey in Realmz. The replacement graphics have a 3-D grey slate look. There are also replacement graphics for some other icons. I have BinHex'd these files and placed them on my own archive in their orignal form if you have had trouble downloading them in the past from their home page. I would recommend that if you use these replacement interfaces, that you do not replace the icons using ResEdit, since that may affect your game's future "patchability". The replacement graphics are nice, but I don't like all of their replacement buttons. You can also add these PICTs to your own Realmz Portraits file using ResEdit. RIFLE has been obsoleted by Realmz V.3.2. For more information and screen shots, see the Phoenixsoft, Inc.'s R.I.F.L.E. page.

  • Phoenixsoft, Inc.'s R.I.F.T.
    This is basically an abridged version of R.I.F.L.E. This version contains only the replacement icons. You will have to use ResEdit to install these into your Realmz Scenario Driver. I do not recommend that you perform this operation on your Realmz Scenario Driver, as it may affect its "patchability". You can however, copy the images in ResEdit and paste them into the "Get Info" box in the Finder if you really want to replace these icons.

  • www.shareware.com's search results for "Realmz"
    Use this link to find any Realmz scenario and files using the www.shareware.com search engine. Great if you want to find a download site in the same country or at least on the same continent as you are. You can also use any of the following links to find updater patches and scenarios: