Fringe Player: Lunatic Fringe on Mac OS X

Fringe Player is an application that brings the classic game Lunatic Fringe to Mac OS X.

Lunatic Fringe is a fast-paced space combat game not unlike Asteroids and Maelstrom. It was written by Ben Haller as an After Dark screen saver module. Unfortunately, After Dark is long obsolete, leaving Lunatic Fringe unplayable on newer machines — until now.

Fringe Player runs in the Classic environment, controlling the Lunatic Fringe screen saver module. It takes the place of After Dark itself. Fringe Player is not a complete screen saver; its sole purpose is to play Lunatic Fringe.

Download

Fringe Player.zip (15 KB)

Requirements

• Mac OS X version 10.3 Panther or 10.4 Tiger. Use Fringe Player 2 on Mac OS X Leopard.
• A PowerPC machine. Use Fringe Player 2 on Intel machines.
• The Mac OS X Classic environment. Fringe Player has been tested with Mac OS 9.2 inside Classic. Use Fringe Player 2 if you don't have Classic installed.
• The Lunatic Fringe screen saver module. Fringe Player is not a game; the game itself must be provided separately. Lunatic Fringe was part of several After Dark collections including More After Dark.
• A 640x480 or larger screen capable of displaying 256 colors. Fringe Player has not been tested with multiple screens; it may not run correctly.

Fringe Player may run on true Mac OS 9 systems, but this has never been tested.

Instructions

1. Run Fringe Player.
2. Set options as desired.
3. Click Play.

Notes

• Once Lunatic Fringe is running, Caps Lock switches between the high score list and the game. To quit, press ESC from the high score list. Note that moving the mouse does not interrupt the game, unlike the original screen saver version.
• Fringe Player will look for the Lunatic Fringe module in Fringe Player's folder and in System Folder:Control Panels:After Dark Files. If Lunatic Fringe is somewhere else, Fringe Player will ask you to find it.
• Better animation uses a higher frame rate, which may work poorly if your computer is not fast enough.
• Faster animation does not look as nice, but may play more smoothly on slower Macs.
• Set screen size will automatically change your display resolution to match Lunatic Fringe's best output. If you have a laptop or a flat-panel LCD screen, you might want to turn this off.
• Set screen colors will automatically change your display to 256 colors. If you turn this off, you must change your display to 256 colors yourself, because Lunatic Fringe does not work with other color settings.

Credits

Fringe Player is copyright © 2004 Greg Parker. All rights reserved. Fringe Player may be freely distributed, but it may not be modified or sold.

Lunatic Fringe was written by Ben Haller and is copyright © 1991-1993 Berkeley Systems. You may not distribute Lunatic Fringe without their permission (or the permission of whoever owns the rights to After Dark now).

Thanks to Steve Falkenburg and the Twilight Zone Hack for providing GetOSEvent enlightenment.

Greg Parker
gparker-fringe@sealiesoftware.com
Sealie Software