Secret Place: a Lagoon fansite

Installation Instructions

***This web site does not distribute emulators, ROM images or BIOS images***

The SHARP x68000 is more obscure than other retro gaming platforms, and documentation of how to emulate it is harder to find than for the SNES. Here is a setup guide for playing the original Lagoon for SHARPx68k over emulator.

1. Obtain a copy of the game
Google for 'sharp x68000 roms' to find a generic roms site. Look for Lagoon and download it. If there's more than one file, download them all. (The rom used to be available on ZOOM's site, but their whole Lagoon section was taken offline. Sad panda.) Decompress anything archived (ie. .zip). There should be 5 files:

  • Disk 0
  • Disk 1
  • Disk 2
  • Disk 3
  • User Disk

    • Sometimes the disks are labelled 1->4, it's the same thing, but whenever the game itself prompts for disks, number them mentally 0->3

    There are some distributions of the game that do not include the User Disk, but the disk is required to get it working, so ensure that you have it.

    2. Obtain an emulator
    Go to the Zophar Sharp68k emulation page and download the WinX68K High-Speed emulator (Eng version). Other emulators might work. This is the one I've personally tried. Decompress if needed.

    3. Obtain BIOS
    If you try to use the emulator now it won't work, because it needs a BIOS to run. A BIOS is a special set of machine instructions a computer uses to start up. Computers and newer video game consoles (ie. PSX and after) in general need a BIOS, or the emulator comes prepackaged with one. BIOSes are considered extremely sensitive, even moreso than ROMs, so I can't provide a link to one. So, use Google to find a BIOS rip. Another word for a BIOS file is a 'disk image' or 'system image'.
    When you find it, decompress if needed and put in the same directory as WinX68kHighSpeed_eng.exe. Sometimes more than one BIOS file are packaged together, if that's the case just put them all in that directory. Their file extension is typically .dat or .bin.

    4. Start the emulator
    Try to start the emulator. If it starts without any warning/error messages, you're set. If not you might need to try another BIOS (there can be different versions.). If the emulator started correctly you will see a message like:

    This is a prompt for you to insert disks

    5. Start the game
    The SHARP inputs software using two floppy disk drives, the first is called FDD0 and the second is FDD1. The five 'disk' files you have are treated like floppy disks. To start up the game, click on FDD0 and browse to your Disk 0, and open. Then click FDD1 and browse to Disk 1, and open. The game should start.

    This is ZOOM's opening screen

    6. Configure the controls.
    Now that you've verified the game starts you can configure the controls. There is a default setting but it might not work for Lagoon if some of the game keys aren't mapped to anything. Here is a diagram of what does what:

    Note: hit XF1 and X2 at the *same time* to use magic

    As a quick-start you can download my configuration and put it in the same directory. Z and X are XF1/X2, F1 is escape, and the numpad arrowkeys are mapped to the directional keys (for a laptop), the letter keys are the same.

    Some people have had issues with the configuration window on this emulator. There can exist a UI problem forcing the text to be bold, which widens the font to the point that it makes the keyboard configuration window unusable. I have not experienced this issue personally, but I can (anecdotally) say that I had good results using the emulator on Windows 7 and 8, with a USA English language environment. Those experiencing problems may want to consider finding a different emulator, or the option below.

    If no other keyboard configuration will work, another option is to use a gamepad for basic gameplay/directional movement, and continue to simply keep the keyboard layout at default, which still allows full functionality for the menu keys, which are more rarely used (like hitting 'I' for inventory, and pausing).

    7. Insert the user disk
    After the intro scene plays or you escape out of it, whichever happens first, you'll get prompted with this message:

    It's asking you to insert the user disk. So click FDD0, brows to your User Disk, and open. The game will start.

    8. Start gameplay
    If everything was set up correctly, the game will be playable like normal. WinX68K has pretty good compatibility with Lagoon. Not perfect- the sound will skip sometimes- but like, pretty good.
    Every once in a while during gameplay it will prompt you to change disks. The message for that will look something like:

    In this case it's asking you to take disk 2 and put it in drive 1. Just remember that both the drives and the disks start count from 0, not 1

    Have fun!