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OMG!!! THAT is the shapeshifter??
I finished it too. I will write my comments about the game in detail tomorrow. In general though, it was a unique and unregretable experience.

Comments about the game.

While the game itself is perhaps one of the most difficult ever, its whole experience is very rewarding. And it’s not neseccarily its great humour what I am talking about. Mostly, it is the world and its small details, the background of every NPC you meet, the freedom of choices you have and their results - until you run out of time and die that is . Of course difficulty is not the game’s biggest problem. The sound issues are simply outrageous, where music, background voices and sound are all mixed up, resulting in…tragic results. There were many other compatibility issues with newer machines, but this is not something to blame the developer for. Its graphics look really nice despite its age and the voice actors are excellent.

Despite all its problems and issues, TSB is a totally unique and unforgettable game. A solid 4/5 in my books. However, anyone who wants to live TSB experience without any dissapointments (clicks, deaths, bugs) would better take careful looks on this playthrough.

My favourite characters were Soldier and one of Cilia’s mates (the moustached one).

I DID IT!!! I finally finished this game! After what, ten years now? At least that long! No idea what went wrong the last time I played (for some reason, the shapeshifter flashback wouldn’t start).

I agree with most of the comments on this game. It is absolutely brilliant… in theory. The story is exciting, the characters are interesting - I love the flashbacks with Maksh and Alias; a cliche that’s put to really good use. The alien designs are superb: both their visual appearances and the background stories about their cultures, home worlds and their anatomy (!). Just reading through all the articles on the info console had me in stitches - every time. And I have played this game many times.

It’s extremely frustrating that a game this good is also so difficult to play. First you need to get the hang of the game mechanics, which are pretty poorly explained in the manual. I suspect Meretzky wanted it to be kind of an evil puzzle on its own. Then you have to get ambushed by the various timed traps and die from those at least once.

A few of the puzzles are brilliant, but too many are either badly clued or just plain bad. Some examples: I always thought Click’s fooling the cop and drugging the guard creatures were very clever. On the other hand, the drug puzzle is glitched; I’m sure there’s a mistake in the rotation order of the animals. And the first puzzle in the flashback, where you have to put the insects in the blender to be able to tell which one is which and then reload, is very unfair. Lack of clues: I felt that pretty much Seedrot’s entire flashback and most of Cilia’s had fair puzzles, some were really ingenious, but the game failed to indicate what the player was supposed to be doing. (How am I supposed to figure out that I should flood the lock or sink the rowboat?) And the filler puzzles with crystals and itineraries in Fleebix’s flashback… I guess they can be fun to play but they are so obviously there for padding reasons.

I have suffered enormous frustration with this game, but the fact that I decided to go back to it an umpteenth time still says something. There’s just so many details to cheer you up while you lug through the same puzzles time and again. I remember not liking Cilia’s flashback, and started it with some trepidation. But as soon as the trio started bantering, I just couldn’t stop laughing. Again and again. Meretzky really struck gold almost every time, which is pretty impressive. Or maybe everything’s just grown on me during all these years.

It feels good to finally be able to cross this one off the list of “unfinisheds”. I’d probably never have got around to it if it weren’t for this playthrough.

The time has finally came.

Moderators!!  UNPIN THE THREAD!!! 

driver8 - 17 July 2012 09:53 PM

OK, sorry for the delay posting these instructions. Busy day.

If you can’t get the installer to work, this should do the trick. This may also interest people not running Windows 7, since it allows you to play without disc swapping.

1) From Disc 1, copy the “SPACEBAR” folder to the root of your C:\ driver. You should now have a “C:\SPACEBAR” folder.

2) From Disc 1, copy the files “DISK1” and “README.TXT” and all of the folders to “C:\SPACEBAR\”

3) Copy everything from Disc 2 and Disc 3 to “C:\SPACEBAR\”

4) Now we’ll edit the registry. Open up notepad and paste this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Rocket Science]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Rocket Science\The Space Bar]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Rocket Science\The Space Bar\1.0]
"InstallCode"="1"
"InstallPath"="C:\\spacebar"
"HomeDir"="C:\\spacebar\\" 

5) Save this to the “C:\SPACEBAR\” folder as “spacebar.reg”.

6) Find the “spacebar.reg” file and run it. This merges the settings into your registry and makes the game look to the “C:\SPACEBAR” directory instead of your CD drive for the files from the discs. No more swapping!

7) Right click on “SPACEBAR.EXE” and click Properties. Go to the Compatibility tab and check “Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows 95”. Check “Run in 640 x 480” and click OK.

EDIT: Actually, it seems you can run it without using Resolver.

9) That should do it. Run the game by executing “SPACEBAR.EXE” and beware of crashes in the kitchen area.

Your “C:\SPACEBAR” folder should look like this when you’re done:

Finally, a request: Could someone who has successfully run the installer tell me what all you have in the registry under “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Rocket Science”? You can do this by running regedit (Ctrl+Win, type “regedit”, Enter). Navigate to the Rocket Science folder and right click on it. Click Export and save it somewhere. Right click on the resulting file, click edit, and copy/paste it’s contents here. I’d also like to know if you have any extra files or folders in your install folder that aren’t in my screenshot.

-driver8

FWIW, I’ve gotten it to work on Windows 8.1 with these instructions as a base point.

Originally, under Win 8.1, it worked except that there was no sound.

Strangely, the sound returned once I changed compatibility mode to “Windows 7”.

No disk swapping, only quirk seems to be the crazy panning speed.

Hi,
  i am playing TSB on win10, but it crashes once i get to click snap snap rattle and greet him.
does anyone know how to fix this?

i used the above method but changed the WLD files to see the same disk and then copied DISK1 file to the SB directory