Realmz — a party of six and a stack of scenarios Runs here
1994 · Tim Phillips / Fantasoft · Mac OS 8 · SheepShaver (Power Macintosh 9500) · 800×600 at 8-bit colour
Guide updated September 2026
Realmz is a party-based role-playing game in the Wizardry and Bard's Tale line, built by one person in Seattle and kept going for the better part of a decade. You make a party, pick a scenario, and work through a tactical, turn-based campaign on a tile map with a genuinely deep rule set underneath.
What made it matter on the Macintosh was the scenario model: Realmz is an engine, and the adventures are separate data. Fantasoft sold some, other people wrote more, and the game had a modding community years before that was a common thing.
Boots Mac OS 8.6 and opens Realmz on the Fantasoft title screen. Make a character party before choosing a scenario.
Controls
| Mouse | Movement, menus, combat and inventory |
| Menus | Character creation, party management, scenario selection |
| Cmd-S | Save. Do it often. |
| Cmd-Q | Quit to the Finder |
Shareware, distributed freely with registration asked for by the author. This copy is unregistered and unmodified. Fantasoft wound down in the 2000s and Realmz has not been sold since.
Archives
- Internet Archive — the Tucows Macintosh archive copy this was built from.
How it works & what to expect
| Machine | Power Macintosh 9500, 800×600 in colour |
|---|---|
| System | Mac OS 8.6, shared with every other title of this era |
| Emulator | SheepShaver, compiled to WebAssembly |
| Version | 8.0.5 |
| Saves | Characters and games save inside the emulated Mac, in your browser |
Realmz does not carry its own operating system — Mac OS 8.6 comes from the shared image used by Cythera, Avara and the rest, so it starts much faster if you have opened one of those.
This is the 8.0.5 release with the scenarios that shipped in it. The wider library of third-party scenarios people wrote over the years is not included; those were separate downloads and many are lost.
It is a dense game and it does not hold your hand. Expect to spend your first session in character creation and the manual.
Why it is remembered
It was the Macintosh's long-running RPG. While the PC had Ultima and Might and Magic, the Mac had comparatively little; Realmz filled that gap for years and was updated continuously from 1994 into the 2000s.
The engine/scenario split. Separating the rules from the adventures let Fantasoft keep selling content and let players write their own. Divinity, the scenario editor, produced a real body of community work — an early and unusually healthy modding scene.
It is one person's decade. Tim Phillips wrote and maintained it largely alone. The sheer accumulated depth — classes, races, spells, conditions, encounter scripting — is the kind of thing that only happens when someone keeps at a project far longer than is reasonable.
Getting started
Build a full party before you touch a scenario. Realmz expects six characters and a mix of classes, and a thin party will be destroyed in the first serious fight.
Start with the introductory scenario rather than whichever sounds most interesting. The difficulty range across scenarios is wide and several assume an experienced, well-equipped party.
Save constantly, in more than one slot. Combat is tactical and losing characters is permanent enough to matter.
Questions people ask
Is it free?
It is shareware — freely distributed and playable, with the author's registration notice intact. The copy here is unregistered and unmodified.
Are all the scenarios included?
The ones that shipped with version 8.0.5 are here. The larger library of third-party scenarios written over the years was distributed separately and is not included.
Can I save?
Yes. Characters and games save inside the emulated Macintosh in your browser.
How hard is it?
Demanding. It is a tactical party RPG with a deep rule set and no tutorial to speak of.
Why does it take a while to start?
It boots Mac OS 8.6 first. That image is shared with the other Mac OS 8 titles here, so it is faster the second time.
Who made it?
Tim Phillips, published through his company Fantasoft, and maintained by him for close to a decade.
Put Realmz on your own site
Free, no permission needed and no account. Paste this where you want the machine to appear; it brings its own emulator and asks nothing of your page.
<iframe src="https://macemu.com/embed/realmz/"
width="800" height="600"
style="border:0;max-width:100%"
allowfullscreen
title="Realmz"></iframe>Sized to this title's real screen. How embedding works.
