Across the desolate wastes of Azra wanders a bard, lost amidst the cracks and crevices of the land. He has traveled long and far, searching for a place to call home. His needs are simple: shelter, good food, good drink, and most importantly, good folks to enjoy his music.
Perhaps somewhere like… the fabled City of Id.
In Silence Waits is a graphical, horror-themed adventure game following up on the setting established in The Aching. Still driven by a combination of arrow keys and parser input, In Silence Waits continues The Aching‘s precedent of a methodical approach to adventure games.
Having been dropped off before a forgotten landmark in the midst of a sheltered canyon, you’ll guide this bard through dangers untold as he searches for a passage to this rare city of peace. You’ll meet several creatures along the way, both friendly and fearsome: some looking for kinship, others for a quick meal. So be wary, traveler! Aid comes in all shapes and sizes, but so does danger.
In this world, not all monsters must be feared, and not all friendly faces should be trusted.
The engine behind In Silence Waits, first developed for The Aching, is 100% backwards compatible with PCs all the way back to the original IBM 5160 and the Tandy 1000, with optional support for CGA 4-color graphics, VGA 256-color graphics, and a variety of contemporary audio devices including the Roland MT-32, MPU-401, and even the Sound Blaster and Adlib. On modern Windows and Linux, the DOS environment is seamlessly emulated, offering more accessibility and features like achievements.
System specifications
In Silence Waits runs flawlessly in DOSBox-based emulators on any system (Linux/macOS/Windows), and comes with DOSBox Staging bundled for a seamless experience! However, if you want to run it on real DOS hardware, you can! The system requirements are:
- Any 8086 (or higher) IBM-compatible PC, running at 10 MHz or faster
- MS-DOS (or compatible operating system) or Windows 95/98
- 384KB of RAM
- Tandy/EGA 16-color (TGA), or VGA 256-color graphics
- Optional: Tandy 3-voice sound, Roland MT-32 or General MIDI modules, Sound Blaster, Adlib