Hi there!

I've been looking for a game called "Backpacker" for a while now and I cannot find a version that's working. It was released in 1995 by BMG Interactive Entertainment. I downloaded a version from Myabandonware com, but my PC simply refuses to launch the program, despite my opening the ISO file in Deamon Tools. I've already tried changing compability to Windows 95, but it doesn't make a difference.

Does anyone know where I can find another version? Or maybe have an idea of how to solve the problem with the file mentioned above?

Thanks!

Such an old game may ultimately be really tough to run on modern machines. Perhaps you could look into getting Virtual Machine software to run Windows 95. (Sorry I can't help other than that, others may be able to.) Otherwise you could relive some nostalgia via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcJhVMW3qRQ

It looks like one of the main people who has worked on the game has a website, though some site pics are missing so I don't know if this is still a way to contact him - https://www.gadnell.com/stills/

Depends what the issues are. For instance I would assume it’s a 32 bit installer, so you couldn’t use it on a 64bit os. You could use a virtual image (vmware or virtualbox should both work) to do the extract. You then have the files extracted. Next up is to decide what the game requires to run, if it’s dos then use dosbox, if it’s windows then you need to consider renderer, perhaps one of the newer dx wrappers would work, nglide for instance. You might also need specific components, c++ extensions, physx.
Ensure you run outside windows folder, eg c:/mygames
Try the compatability settings.
Check for patches/mods/engine reimplements.
There isn’t much info on pcgamingwiki:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Backpacker

Did you mean 16bit? The risk for that is very high with a game from '95.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Backpacker Not much information there :-(

Often those very first games from after the DOS era had both a Windows and a DOS version and the Windows version might have used a 16bit installer even if the game itself was in 32bit. Looks like there is no DOS version. Find an old computer with a 32bit version of Windows installed and try installing on that. Most likely it will still not work but we could find out what the game wants in order to run and remedy that with a wrapper like dgvoodoo. If it works, then you can move the game installation over to a modern machine and manually add registry keys and such. If I after that would make a new installer in 32bits, I could be one who works for a company like GOG.

Could be, exe is apparently 32bit. Didn’t really check to in depth.
That really struck a nerve though, 16bit, and the game is from 25 years ago. Sigh.