Online
TaskMaker and Tomb of the TaskMaker can now be played on-line using a web-interface at: classicreload or playclassic The emulators work fairly well and you can play completely through the full game if you have a valid TaskMaker registration code. The sound does not work, and you cannot save games between sessions despite Classic Reload offering a method to do so (it may work only with DOS games.) Also, the game sometimes crashes during play. Here are some suggestions:
- “Play Classic Games” seems to crash less than “Classic Reload” although the graphics are not quite as crisp
- Always use FireFox
- Delete history before starting to play
- Never save game or reload from a save
- Never use an Exit square or walk off the edge of a map. Always use the Home spell to leave a dungeon.
- Avoid using steps whenever possible, especially in Vidair’s Tower. Using these hints, it is possible to run TaskMaker for several hours at a time without crashing.
Classicreload on Chrome
Classicreload works fine with Chrome, it seems to have garbage collection issues. When the game begins to show signs of decreasing performance, open the Chrome Dev Tools, Clear the console (as best as you can), open the javascript profiler tab and force garbage collection. Wait, occasionally checking to see if the app has returned to performance. The game reacts poorly to switching focus.
The only issue is that reversion may sometimes revert the current map to its initial state (non-original items on the floor would disappear, original items taken would reappear, but your inventory would be intact), avoid doing that unless you want to exploit that behavior.
Emulation
The Basilisk II Setup Guide is thorough, and for ease of play Storm Impact even provides a Basilisk II tested .dsk image loaded with their games. One issue is that the emulator / system attempts to convert and preserve comments on new images, causing the system to hang. Once killed and restarted, functionality continues as normal. For color and sound, you may need to click the application, go to File:Info and increase the "preferred size" to 10000.