How to play classic RPGs on your Android device with ExaGear RPG

If you're anything like me, you'll view mobile gaming as vast wasted opportunity to bring back some of the real classics of yesteryear. The hardware is up to the job and you have it all day long, so it seems tailor made for the challenge.

The problem is, most of those golden oldies have complex control systems designed for keyboard, mouse, or gamepad. It's hard translating that to touchscreen.

This is where ExaGear RPG comes in. It provides screen-edge touch bindings to vital keyboard functions commonly used in RPGs.

Theoretically it ought to work with a range of different titles. In practice, because the keysets used were so diverse, it only guarantees support for Fallout 1 & 2 and Heroes of Might and Magic 6, 7, and 8.

If you own one of these titles, it's worth a trial run because it's super easy to set up. And you never know - it might just work with one of your all time favourites, if you've got the file.

Here's how it works.

First, instal ExaGear RPG from the play store. You can find it with that exact search term. It's free. But don't worry -you'll have the opportunity to spend some money soon enough.

Next you actually need a game to run. ExaGear doesn't provide the game files, so you'll need to own a licensed copy of whatever you want to try out.

If you don't own any old school CD copies, all of the supported games are available from GOG. You have to instal the game on your PC, not on the phone. Make a note of where you installed it, and go grab a beer while you wait for the instal finish.

You did make a note of where you put it, right? Don't worry if not. Just find the launch icon in your start menu, using the handy search box at the bottom if necessary. Then right-click and go to "properties" and you should see where the files are located on your PC. Open up the folder.

Plug your device into your PC. Select the SD card in the root of the device, right-click, choose "new folder", then rename it to "ExaGear".

Copy the folder you found during the previous step into this new folder. If prompted to "skip this file" then select "do this for all files" and then click "ignore".

Disconnect your phone and start up ExaGear RPG on it. You'll be prompted to select a control scheme, with a recommendation depending on the game.

These schemes are how ExaGear makes its money - each one is an in-app purchase. There are three in total, which cover all the supported games. You can trial any scheme for a day before buying, so just go with the recommendation for now.

Voila! You should now be able play the game. The control schemes I tried on Fallout 1 and 2 seemed to work well, but your hardware may be more of a limitation. The games ran quite slowly on my Galaxy S4.