Forget my last post. When installing a newer version (or trying to, at least) of Demise, Avast took exception to the demise1.dll file, and buggered up the installation. Disabling Avast during installation was a temporary panacea; when running the game with Avast enabled, it buggered up the game.
I am uninstalling Avast. I don’t appreciate it screwing around with a legitimate program that I KNOW is not infected.