Getting old Macromedia Director exe. Files to work and play on IOS or Android devices

Hi there. Does anyone know if there is any way to get an exe file to play on an IOS or Android tablet. The file I have, works like a dream on my touch screen laptop, but I can’t find a way to play it on a tablet device?
I created the file in 1999 when Macromedia Director was around using Lingo (giving away my age) and have played it constantly since then on a computer and laptop.
I am trying to remake the game in Unity to get it out to the wider world, but want to get people to test it on a tablet device.
Any thoughts or help will be appreciated.
Thanked by 1watman

Comments

  • There is no way I think.
    If there was a way - it would have to be through an emulator (a middle man) which would likely come at a huge performance cost.

    If I remember right, Shockwave apps built for Windows used DirectX (or a Raster Renderer) as the underlying API - which would further complicate things.

    Shockwave (and flash) players started up on the desktop relied the Windowing system on windows - (when in windowed mode) so for the Raster engine a dependency on the GDI library would be required, as well a dependency on Shell32 for the windows specific API, windowing system, file system, etc, and with the downfall of plugin dependency in the HTML 5 era, ActiveX, and other things - you most likely wouldn't even be able to get it to work through a browser via IOS and Android.

    For a player that old, a Hardware Renderer would have likely relied on DirectX 7 or 8 (no longer supported by anything). If it runs on Windows 10, then I assume the player will most likely be running in Raster mode. Most of the classic GDI calls still function on Windows, but GDI was expanded with GDI+ in newer versions of Windows, and even includes some hardware acceleration starting with Windows Vista.

    I guess in short, it would probably take far more work and alot of knowledge of the native APIs on all platforms to make it work through an emulator (if one doesn't exist). Would be quicker and to rebuild the entire game in Unity.
  • Thanks for that. I did some research today, and there is a tool called ‘EXE to APK converter’ that looks like it may work to get it to run on Android devices. The other thing is to get a Windows based tablet that could work.
    I will try these options and see in the coming week ahead. I still have an old laptop with Director 7 to build and test the levels on... once I know they are good and people have test played them I will look at moving on to Unity.
    I have build the Assets for the game, and will hopefully find a hobbyist coder that might look at assisting.
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