I've been working on a way to play the Gold Box games without fighting DOS settings, and Pool of Radiance is ready to try: amberfolio.org.

You install Forgotten Realms: The Archives – Collection Two from GOG or Steam as usual, then hand the site the game's folder once (on a phone, the files or a zip of the folder). It plays in the browser tab from then on, on a computer, an iPhone, an iPad or an Android phone. Your copy and your saves stay in your browser; nothing is uploaded and there's no account. It's free.

It's SSI's own program running unchanged on an emulator built for these games, so the rules, the fights and the quirks are the 1988 ones. What it adds is optional, each with its own switch, and none of it changes the story, the rules or the challenge:

• A map of where you've walked, on Tab, in the game's own colours
• Your Adventurer's Journal (the PDF from your store copy) opened on the game's own screen when it cites an entry
• Fix in camp: the party casts its own cures and rests only as long as that takes, until everyone is healed
• Modern controls: arrows, Enter and Esc work beside the original letter keys
• Lettering: the game's text in a plainer face, if the original is hard going
• A CRT filter, and the Tandy sound chip for the footsteps and fights

A controller with the usual layout plays it on a computer, phone or tablet (the browser has to recognise it as a standard one, and the buttons can't be changed yet). A screen reader gets the game's menus, lists and messages read aloud, though not its pictures, so the game can't be played without sight through it.

Only Pool of Radiance runs so far; the rest of the Gold Box games come one at a time. If you try it, I'd like to hear what breaks, what feels wrong, and which game you'd want next.

I built it with heavy use of AI coding tools; better you hear that from me. The emulator is open source (AGPL): https://github.com/amberfolio/amberfolio

Not affiliated with the rights holders of Pool of Radiance or the Gold Box games. You need your own copy; the site provides no game files.