Curse of the Azure Bonds

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Curse of the Azure Bonds

Developers
	Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Mac OS (Classic)	MicroMagic Inc.
Engines
	Gold Box
Release dates
DOS	1989
Mac OS (Classic)	1990
Windows (DOSBox)	August 20, 2015
macOS (OS X) (DOSBox)	August 20, 2015
Linux (DOSBox)	August 20, 2015

Key points

Characters can be transferred from Pool of Radiance, Hillsfar, and Gateway to the Savage Frontier (see Transfer characters).

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		Run in DOSBox.
GOG.com		Bundled with Pool of Radiance, Hillsfar, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, and Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures.

The retail version requires the Translation Wheel to answer copy protection questions. The GOG.com version has the copy protection cracked (anything will be accepted).

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Edit CURSE.CFG
Go to the installation folder. Edit CURSE.CFG. Change F to N. Notes The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons splash screen will still be shown.

Skip Translation Wheel prompts

Launch with start.exe STING Wooden parameter
Run the game with start.exe STING Wooden

Gold Box Companion

Gold Box Companion is a program for Windows that adds various optional features when playing the DOS version in DOSBox (automap, party HUD, raising level restrictions, character editing, etc.)

Transfer characters

Characters can be transferred from Pool of Radiance and Hillsfar.

Gateway to the Savage Frontier characters are also compatible (this is not officially supported).

Instructions

For Pool of Radiance, if a character you want is currently part of a saved game, load that save in Pool of Radiance, go to the Training Hall, then Remove (not Drop) the character and save your game (otherwise that character's data will be out of date). Run <path-to-game>\COPYCURS.EXE to transfer files, or manually copy the character files from Pool of Radiance (*.CHA) or Hillsfar (*.HIL) into Curse of the Azure Bonds' <path-to-game>\SAVE\ folder. In Curse of the Azure Bonds, go to the Training Hall (either on an existing save or when starting a new game) and add the characters to the party. Notes Characters can be freely moved between Curse of the Azure Bonds and Hillsfar, but Pool of Radiance characters cannot be transferred back. For Hillsfar, see the Hillsfar character transfer instructions.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
DOS	<path-to-game>\CURSE.CFG
Windows	<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)	<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)
Linux	<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)

It's unknown whether this game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux. Please fill in this information.

Save game data location

System	Location
DOS	<path-to-game>\SAVE\
Windows	<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)	<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)
Linux	<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)

The default save folder can be changed by editing CURSE.CFG.

Saves are SAVGAMA.DAT to SAVGAMJ.DAT.

Character files are *.GUY. Character files are only present when that character is not part of a party in a save file.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		320x200 only.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		For DOSBox toggle with Alt+↵ Enter (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)		For DOSBox use an unofficial build (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
60 FPS
120+ FPS

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus		No mouse support.
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).

Controller types

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		On/off only (toggle with Ctrl+S).
Surround sound
Subtitles		Everything is text-based.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		For DOSBox change the priority background value in the DOSBox configuration file.

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
DOS video modes	CGA, EGA, Tandy

System requirements

DOS

Windows

Mac OS (Classic)

macOS (OS X)

Linux

DOS
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	DOS 4.01
Processor (CPU)
System memory (RAM)	512K
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	CGA, EGA, Tandy