Wikipedia

ScummVM

Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a set of game engine recreations. Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system, it also supports a variety of non-SCUMM games by companies like Revolution Software and Adventure Soft. It was originally written by Ludvig Strigeus.[1] ScummVM is free software that is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

ScummVM
Original author(s)Ludvig Strigeus, Vincent Hamm[1]
Developer(s)ScummVM Team
Initial releaseOctober 8, 2001; 22 years ago (2001-10-08)[2]
Stable release
2.8.1[3] Edit this on Wikidata / 31 March 2024; 47 days ago (31 March 2024)
Repository
Written inC++ and SDL
Operating systemCross-platform
TypeInterpreter
LicenseGPL-3.0-or-later[4]
Websitewww.scummvm.org Edit this on Wikidata

ScummVM is a re-implementation of the part of the software used to interpret the scripting languages such games used to describe the game world rather than emulating the hardware the games ran on; as such, ScummVM allows the games it supports to be played on platforms other than those for which they were originally released with little or no overhead (due to not emulating the hardware), and without the bugs that might exist in the original software.

The team behind it also add improvements such as bug-fixes and translations and works with commercial companies such as GOG.com about re-releases.[5]

Features edit

ScummVM is a program that supports numerous adventure game engines via virtual machines, allowing the user to play supported adventure games on their platform of choice. ScummVM provides none of the original assets for the games it supports, and expects the user to properly own the original game's media so as to use the software legally. The official project website offers games that are freeware that work directly with ScummVM. Atop reimplementing the game executables in portable form, ScummVM enables players to save and load the state of the game at any time, enabling a save system atop whatever the reimplemented game may provide. It has also begun to work at providing alternate controls for newer devices, such as mobile devices with touch screens, which work atop the original games.[1]

While ScummVM appears to function equivalently as a game emulator, the ScummVM team does not consider it as such. Outside of some subsystems like audio engines which they are forced to rely on emulation, ScummVM recreates game engines from older languages into more portable C++ code, so that the high-level opcodes in a game's assets will execute in the same manner as their original release, while improving the portability of ScummVM to numerous platforms. The ScummVM team consider this an improvement over simply running the older games and their executables through an operating system emulator, such as DOSBox, since ScummVM's implements are more lightweight and require less processing power and memory, allowing use on more limited processing environments like mobile devices.[6]

Ports edit

Portability is a design goal of the project.[7] Ports of ScummVM are available for Microsoft Windows, macOS and a variety of Unix-like systems including Linux (based on RPM, Debian, or source), members of the BSD family (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD) and Solaris. It has also been ported to console systems. Less mainstream personal computer ports include those to Amiga, Atari-FreeMiNT, Haiku-BeOS-ZETA, RISC OS, and OS/2 (including derivatives such as ArcaOS).

A variety of game consoles have official ports. ScummVM has been ported to gaming machines such as the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, GameCube, and Wii,[8] and to handheld consoles including the GCW Zero, GP2X, Nintendo DS, Pandora, PlayStation Portable and the PS Vita. Handheld computer platforms supported include Palm OS Tapwave Zodiac, Symbian (UIQ platform, Nokia 60, 80, and Nokia 7710 90 phone series), Nokia's Internet Tablet OS (used by the Nokia 770, N800 and N810), Apple's iPhone,[9] MotoMAGX, MotoEZX phones and Windows Mobile. Platforms supported by unofficial ScummVM ports include the Microsoft's Xbox gaming console, BlackBerry PlayBook,[10] Zaurus, Gizmondo and GP32 portable device platforms. Mobile phones running Android,[11] webOS[12] or unofficial Samsung's bada OS are also supported.

History edit

Work on ScummVM started in September 2001 (with the first public release at October[2] and a site launch at November[13]) by computer science student Ludvig Strigeus. Looking to write his own adventure game, he looked to see how the mechanics of an existing game engine, specifically working to create a way to play Monkey Island 2 on his Linux machine.[1] At about the same time, Vincent Hamm was also looking to implement a SCUMM system player, and though he had done deeper research into understanding how the SCUMM engine worked, found that Strigeus was much further along, and the two joined to craft the project.[1] While Strigeus finished the required implementation for Monkey Island 2, Hamm worked separately to prepare the engine for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and once completed, the two found some dis-coordination on their efforts but eventually got the project working for both games.[1]

News of ScummVM was picked up by the tech news website Slashdot in November 2001, drawing a large interest to the project, and several other developers became part of the project to help support other games. These developers often turned to the creators of the original games to obtain information in informal ways, to help create the reimplementation.[1] Further developers helped to support games that did not use SCUMM, such as Adventure Soft's Simon the Sorcerer; there was some debate about changing the name of the program at this point, but they ultimately kept the ScummVM title, believing that SCUMM was the most well-recognized adventure game engine.[1] Strigeus had built support for iMUSE, the sound software used by many LucasArts games, but feared including it due to potential backlash from LucasArts. Other developers on the project advised him that there should be no legal issues and it was eventually included.[1] Though Strigeus and Hamm would leave the project in 2002, by then it had a large enough development team to allow it to grow, led by James "Ender" Brown.[1] Following this shift, the engine's source code was changed from C to C++, and a graphical user interface (GUI) was added.[1]

With increased awareness of the project, LucasArts sent a cease & desist letter to the project, believing they were using some of LucasArts' proprietary code. Brown worked over the next four years with LucasArts' legal representatives to explain the nature of the project and the source of their information to demonstrate that what they had created was legal. Brown considered that LucasArts was trying to be accommodating as ScummVM helped to raise interest in these titles. They ultimately came to a legal agreement to allow ScummVM to continue to be developed.[1]

The project would also incorporate other parallel efforts to make game reimplementations for other adventure games. Games from Sierra Online were of high demand for the project, requiring them to implement the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) and the more advanced Sierra's Creative Interpreter (SCI) engines. AGI support was added in 2006 by incorporating efforts from the Sarien project, but efforts for SCI support were hampered by the parallel project, FreeSCI. Though both ScummVM and FreeSCI aimed to reverse engineer the workings of SCI, FreeSCI had stated they took a more clean-room approach to avoid any legal question about their reverse engineering, and believed the ScummVM project had run afoul of some of Sierra's approaches and thus were hesitant to work together.[1] However, FreeSCI began to languish in interest compared to ScummVM; after a developer took it upon themselves to make the FreeSCI engine work in ScummVM, the FreeSCI saw more participation in their project, and they agreed to merge their efforts into ScummVM. Initial SCI support was subsequently released in a 2010 version of ScummVM.[1]

ScummVM continues to add new games or game engines, though the process to create these is relatively slow. According to the team's project lead Eugene Sandulenko (as of 2017[5]), game engines are chosen for inclusion into ScummVM either if they are given the source code that makes it easy to port into the software's architecture, or if one or more of the team members are passionate about bringing a game engine into the program to do the difficult task of reconstructing the game's code from the compiled versions.[6] Initially ScummVM only included 2D game engines, leaving 3D games to be handled by the sister project ResidualVM, but in 2021 the two projects merged, lifting that restriction.[6][14] The 2.0 version of ScummVM was released in December 2017, adding support for several full motion video games and some very obscure titles, such as Full Pipe and Plumbers Don't Wear Ties. With this release, ScummVM has support for 64 different game engines.[6]

Since around December 2017, ScummVM had been working support for Macromedia Director in coordination with some of the original developers. Macromedia Director was used for many mid-1990s video games such as The Journeyman Project.[6] By August 2021, the first versions of ScummVM with Director support were released, with the team continuing to work on improving performance.[15]

An attempt to bring in Another World by Éric Chahi brought some internal stress within the project in 2004. Another World was not a point-and-click adventure game, and used polygon-based graphics instead of pixel-based ones most adventure games employ, and thus was considered a serious departure from the focus of ScummVM. Though the project was scrapped in a few days after Chahi requested its removal as he was preparing a 15th anniversary remastered for sale, the current leads of the project had to refocus the group and define the ideals that ScummVM should meet.[1]

ScummVM has also had difficulty in bringing games using the Adventure Game Studio (AGS), which is used frequently in indie adventure games, such as the Blackwell series. While the source code for AGS had been put into the open by its developer Chris Jones in 2010, the ScummVM team was met with a large backlash of complaints from developers using the AGS engine for their games, stating that they did not want to see their games run in ScummVM.[6] Yet eventually a couple of years later AGS was tested in the development build, with a request to the public to beta test thousands of newly supported games,[16] until all AGS v2.5+ games were officially added to the program, coinciding with its 20th anniversary in October 2021.[14]

ScummVM has been a participant in the Google Summer of Code every year since 2007 except for 2015. A sister project, ResidualVM, was started to implement engines for three-dimensional adventure games, such as Grim Fandango and Myst III: Exile, named as such as these games reflect the residual of those not already covered by ScummVM.[17] By late 2020, ResidualVM officially merged with ScummVM.[2] This was completed with the version 2.5 release, coinciding with the program's 20th anniversary in October 2021.[14]

Developer support edit

According to Sandulenko "there is no typical process" when it comes to collaboration with developers: "Everything is ad-hoc. What we do, we try to search for contact info of people who were working on the titles some developer is interested in, and we’re inquiring access to their original source code, if it still exists somewhere. Then we start working on it at our own pace".[18]

With increased attention, ScummVM has entered into favorable agreements with adventure game developers to help bring their titles into the engine, or in some cases, being given source code and other assets to work from. Revolution Software helped the developers with source code and technical advice for its games, and once ScummVM supported the company's Virtual Theatre engine, Revolution released Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky as freeware and provided assets from its first two Broken Sword games in an open media format. The renewed interest in these games from younger players enabled Revolution to work on two more Broken Sword games.[1] Other developers that have worked closely with ScummVM include:

The digital storefront GOG.com which specializes in selling digital copies of older games, provides support to ScummVM, and sells titles that include the ScummVM engine as part of their distribution.[1] Disney, which owns the rights to LucasArts adventure games, released Maniac Mansion on Steam running off ScummVM.[6]

Development edit

Operation Stealth and Future Wars support was added by integrating another stand-alone recreation of their engine: cinE.[21] TrollVM has also been integrated into ScummVM adding support for three pre-AGI games: Mickey's Space Adventure, Troll's Tale, and Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood.[22][23]

Mistic's GPL violations edit

ScummVM is distributed as free software under the GPL-2.0-or-later license, enabling anyone to use the project as an engine for a game. For example, Revolution Software repackaged their Broken Sword games for a DVD release, using ScummVM with the included sword1 and sword2 engines to support modern computers.[1]

In December 2008, the ScummVM team learned that the recently released Wii ports of three Humongous Entertainment Junior Adventure titles, Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds, Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside, and Spy Fox: Dry Cereal, have all used the ScummVM engine without proper attribution. The games were published on request of Atari through Majesco Entertainment, who turned to Mistic Software to port the games. Mistic had used ScummVM for these, but failed to credit the developers. While the ScummVM team contacted gpl-violations.org for legal advice, Atari instead threatened to sue the ScummVM team, as the terms of Nintendo Wii development kit heavily restricted the use of open source software, including the GPL. A settlement was made in 2009, in which ScummVM would drop the investigation of the GPL violation, on the condition that Mistic would sell or destroy all GPL-violating copies of the games, make a donation to the Free Software Foundation, and pay the legal fees. As a result, this legal dispute significantly limited the availability of the Wii ports of these three titles.[1]

ResidualVM edit

ScummVM
Original author(s)James Brown
Developer(s)ResidualVM Team
Initial releaseAugust 15, 2003; 20 years ago (2003-08-15)
Final release
0.3.1 / June 15, 2018; 5 years ago (2018-06-15)
Preview release
0.4
Repository
Written inC++
Operating systemCross-platform
TypeInterpreter
LicenseGNU General Public License
Websitewww.scummvm.org  

ResidualVM (formerly Residual) was a cross-platform computer program comprising 3D game engine recreations with a common graphical user interface. It supports Grim Fandango, Myst III: Exile, and The Longest Journey. It merged with ScummVM in October 2020.[24]

ResidualVM was originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the GrimE game engine, and was later adapted to support other ones.[25][26] Like ScummVM, the VM in ResidualVM stood for virtual machine.[27]

ResidualVM is a reimplementation of the part of the software used to interpret the scripting languages by conducting reverse engineering on the original game rather than emulating the hardware on which the games ran. As such, ResidualVM allows the games it supports to be played on platforms other than those for which they were originally released.

 
The logo used until July 2009
 
The logo used from July 2009 to January 2012

The name of the project comes from the fact that it was originally started to support the residual LucasArts adventure games not supported by ScummVM. The original Lua-based engine used by LucasArts in their 3D adventure games was called GrimE (as opposed to SCUMM), so ResidualVM's title is also a word pun as grime is a type of residue.

The project was started by former ScummVM team leader James Brown, and was first publicly available on August 15, 2003.[28] Progress on the project was initially slow, and as a result the project's main goal of supporting Grim Fandango did not occur until April 25, 2011, when the compatibility of Grim Fandango was upgraded to "completable with a few minor glitches".[29]

The project obtained a domain separate from ScummVM in December 2011. As a result of the new domain name, the project name was changed from Residual to ResidualVM. The logo was changed to reflect the new name on January 25, 2012. The first stable release of ResidualVM was released 9 years after the project started, on December 21 the same year.[30] It merged with ScummVM in October 2021.[14]

Support edit

ResidualVM was officially available on multiple platforms including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, AmigaOS 4, and IRIX.[31] In addition, an Android port is available in the source code, and unofficial builds have been made with that source. There is also a port available for the Pandora console, and for FreeBSD, but they are not official as they have not been added to the main branch.

With increased attention, ResidualVM entered into favorable agreements with adventure game developers to help bring their titles into the engine. Cyan Worlds partnered with ResidualVM to release Myst III: Exile on digital platforms.[32]

The digital storefront GOG.com which specialized in selling digital copies of older games, sells Myst III: Exile with the ResidualVM engine as part of its distribution.[32]

ResidualVM supported games edit

The stable release supports Grim Fandango[33] and Myst III: Exile, which are completable with a few minor glitches.

In the development branch, there is also support for Escape from Monkey Island, which is completable with a few glitches,[34] and The Longest Journey, which is completable with missing features.[35]

Like ScummVM, ResidualVM contains fixes for bugs present in the original executable. The ResidualVM team discovered a workaround for a bug that causes a critical dialog not to play in Grim Fandango.[36][37] In addition, the Grim Fandango engine in ResidualVM has fixes for over a dozen other bugs present in the original.[38] There is also a branch of ResidualVM called Grim Mouse, which allows Grim Fandango to be played completely with a mouse as a traditional point and click adventure game.[39][40][41][42]

Supported games edit

 
GUI of ScummVM 0.8.0 with the "Classic (builtin)" skin

The following games have support built into the current release of ScummVM.[43][44][45]

LucasArts games edit

In order of the games' original release dates:

Sierra On-Line games edit

Coktel Vision games edit

Adventuresoft-Horrorsoft games edit

Humongous Entertainment games edit

Various games by Humongous Entertainment use the SCUMM engine, and are therefore playable with ScummVM:

Games by other developers edit

ScummVM also supports the following non-SCUMM games:

Games in development edit

The following games are only available in unstable daily builds, and are planned for official support in an upcoming version:

Notes edit

  1. ^ Supports all titles up to Stellaluna.
  2. ^ Supports games developed with Adventure Game Studio v2.5 or later, both free and commercial.
  3. ^ Supports the following sub-engines of the Glk API: ADRIFT (pre-v5), AdvSys, AGT, Alan2, Alan3, Archetype, Glulx, Hugo, JACL, Level9, Magnetic, Quest, Scott and ZCode (pre-v6).

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Moss, Richard (January 16, 2012). "Maniac Tentacle Mindbenders: How ScummVM's unpaid coders kept adventure gaming alive". Ars Technica. Retrieved February 16, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c "Oct 9, 2020: A merger". ScummVM. 2020-09-10. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  3. ^ "Release Notes". 31 March 2024. Retrieved 31 March 2024.
  4. ^ "ScummVM README ·". ScummVM. 12 June 2022.
  5. ^ a b Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Retro Tea Break: Eugene Sandulenko SCUMMVM Team Leader, retrieved 2020-01-21
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Cobbett, Richard (December 22, 2017). "How ScummVM is keeping adventure games alive, one old game at a time". PC Gamer. Retrieved December 28, 2017.
  7. ^ "ScummVM Portability guidelines". wiki.scummvm.org. 2012-11-26. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
  8. ^ Hinkle, David (2008-09-02). "News on Gamecube/Wii ports". Nintendowiifanboy.com. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
  9. ^ 11/26/07 8:25am 11/26/07 8:25am (26 November 2007). "Gizmodo news on iPhone port". Gizmodo.com. Retrieved 2013-09-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ "ScummVM for PlayBook". Forum.kpda.ru. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
  11. ^ "scummvm-android". Archived from the original on 2013-11-01. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
  12. ^ "Webos Internals Team Ports ScummVM on WebOS". Webos-internals.org. 2010-01-28. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
  13. ^ "Nov 22, 2001: Welcome to ScummVM". ScummVM. 2001-11-22. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  14. ^ a b c d Yin-Poole, Wesley (October 10, 2021). "ScummVM releases big new update to celebrate 20 year anniversary". Eurogamer. Retrieved October 10, 2021.
  15. ^ Paprocki, Matt (August 17, 2021). "It's now possible to play early '90s CD-ROM games via ScummVM". Ars Technica. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
  16. ^ a b "Apr 4, 2021: Thousands of games needing testing". ScummVM. 2021-04-04. Retrieved 2021-04-16. We're finally ready to unleash the motherlode onto the public for testing.
  17. ^ O'Conner, Alice (December 27, 2012). "Grim Fandango playable on modern PCs thanks to ResidualVM". Shacknews. Retrieved February 16, 2016.
  18. ^ Damnjanovic, Goran (March 18, 2020). "ScummVM is a Magic Box That Runs Classic Adventures". Levvvel.
  19. ^ a b Strangerke (2012-10-21). "Home". ScummVM. Retrieved 2012-12-28.
  20. ^ sev (2008-09-06). "Home". ScummVM. Retrieved 2012-12-28.
  21. ^ "cinE - the cinematic Engine". SourceForge.net. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
  22. ^ "Old TrollVM Site". Archived from the original on 2010-03-23.
  23. ^ "#9661 (TrollVM project removal) – sourceforge". Sourceforge.net. Archived from the original on 2012-11-10. Retrieved 2012-12-28.
  24. ^ "A merger". ScummVM.
  25. ^ Meer, Alec (13 January 2012). "What If: Grim Fandango Deluxe". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2012-01-13.
  26. ^ "Residual extended functionality". ResidualVM. Archived from the original on 2015-06-23. Retrieved 2012-01-29.
  27. ^ "Maniac Tentacle Mindbenders: How ScummVM's unpaid coders kept adventure gaming alive". Ars Technica. 17 January 2012. Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  28. ^ "ResidualVM Stable Release Supports Grim Fandango". The International House of Mojo. 2012-12-23. Retrieved 2013-01-04.
  29. ^ "Sorry for the wait Mr.Flores!". ResidualVM. Archived from the original on 2013-02-05. Retrieved 2012-01-29..
  30. ^ "ResidualVM Stable Release Brings Grim Fandango to Modern PCs". The Escapist. 2012-12-21. Archived from the original on 2014-11-02. Retrieved 2012-12-22.
  31. ^ "ResidualVM 0.2.1 Bugfix Release". The International House of Mojo. 2014-02-25. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  32. ^ a b "Cyan Partners With ScummVM". The International House of Mojo. Retrieved 2018-06-23.
  33. ^ "Residual!". The International House of Mojo. Retrieved 2012-01-09.
  34. ^ "Return of the Mojo Tidbits". The International House of Mojo. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  35. ^ "It's GSoC Season For ScummVM and ResidualVM". The International House of Mojo. Retrieved 2018-06-23.
  36. ^ "Basic Braining: Tim Schafer talks story, the 80s movies behind Psychonauts, and learning to platform". Penny Arcade Report. Archived from the original on 2012-06-22. Retrieved 2012-03-22.
  37. ^ "Grim Fandango Bug Found, Fixed!". The International House of Mojo. Retrieved 2012-01-24.
  38. ^ "Get Some Lumbago Lemonade With ResidualVM 0.1.1". The International House of Mojo. Retrieved 2013-01-12.
  39. ^ "Mod of the Week: Mouse Interface, for Grim Fandango". PC Gamer. 2014-03-02. Retrieved 2014-06-08.
  40. ^ "Fan mods Grim Fandango into point-and-click adventure". Wired. 2014-03-05. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-06-08.
  41. ^ "Mod Removes Grim Fandango Tank Controls, World Cheers". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. 2014-02-25. Retrieved 2014-06-08.
  42. ^ "Hooray, Someone Finally Fixed Grim Fandango". Kotaku. 2014-02-23. Retrieved 2014-06-08.
  43. ^ The official ScummVM compatibility chart.
  44. ^ "Supported Games - ScummVM :: Wiki". wiki.scummvm.org. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
  45. ^ "Engines - ScummVM :: Wiki". wiki.scummvm.org. Retrieved 2021-12-11.
  46. ^ "Oh! But, Grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have! — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  47. ^ "Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas and a Happy New ScummVM 0.7.0! — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  48. ^ "End of year Director roundup — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
  49. ^ "Chivalry is NOT Dead! — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  50. ^ "End of year Director roundup — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
  51. ^ "End of year Director roundup — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
  52. ^ "Are you ready for the Legend? — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  53. ^ "Recruiting for Mission Supernova — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  54. ^ "The Red Comrades game series goes supported — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  55. ^ "Thanksgiving with a Ring. — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  56. ^ "You are standing in an open field, west of a white house, with a boarded front door. — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  57. ^ "Call for testers on Sfinx — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  58. ^ "Can you survive six of your deadliest foes? — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  59. ^ "People say Syberia doesn't exist. But people are so wrong. — ScummVM :: Home". scummvm.org. Retrieved 2023-04-03.

External links edit

 
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