Linux SCUMM Interpreter

Captain Zion writes "A portable, SDL-based SCUMM interpreter is available at sourceforge. With AGI and SCI interpreters available, do we have alternative interpreters for all major adventure systems?" I never got as hooked on the SCUMM games as the other systems, but Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle were smooth back in the day.

OK, we have an interpreter

[lightspawn]

Now we just need a GUI development environment.

Let's face it: the person who has the talent and time to code a game is not always the same person who has the talent and time to script a story, draw the graphics or create sounds. We "need" tools to let these people work together to create the next Loom / The Dig / Monkey Island etc. And a way to get the story writers interested in the first place.

Fantastic

[Anonymous Coward]

With this interpreter in the works, even more of the games I used to love (and still do, for that matter) are available on Linux. I think it's absolutely great that people have brought old favorites back, sometimes even better than the original.

We have Frotz (including Kwest) and Zip for Infocom games, and you can get almost all of them in the Masterpieces of Infocom boxed set for a good price. In addition, there are many games created by fans of the genre as well that rival Infocom's best.

There's Sarien, for all the old, great AGI games. Sierra's stuff is what I grew up on and it's great having them available. Sarien has some exceptionally cool features like a "hi-res" mode, picture viewer, debugger, etc. Plus you get the THREE channel sound that wasn't available to everyone.

Also, FreeSCI, for Sierra's SCI games. Just as fun as the AGI games, with slightly better graphics... =) FreeSCI can use TiMidity to play the music, in addition to native MIDI, so almost anyone can get the feel of the old music in new-fangled (well, sorta) wavetable synthesis.

Exult too, which lets you play Ultima VII. This is a VERY complete version, with many enhancements (800x600 and sweet scaling!)

And now, of course, scummvm. Monkey Island 2 works very well. Excellent job, especially so early on in development (well, visible development).

There may be others (please post if you know of them!). I'm just so glad to be able to go on nostalgia trips in my favorite OS.

Re:ScummVM patent issues

[sela]

IANAL, but it seems like since you are not living in the US, you are not facing any real risk.

The only legal base ofr the prosecution of Dimitry was that he was allegedly traveling to the US to promote a product that violated the DMCA. If you distribute your code on a european server, then traveling the US should pose no problem as long as in have nothing to do with distributing your code.
As long as you never knowingly distribute your code to the US, no violation is done.

And anyway, it seems to me like, while LucaseArts are not likely to licence their patent to you for free, they are not likely to persue it vigorously either.

My advice is: publish your code on a european server.
In any case they are not likely to sue you without first sending you a warning. In case you get a "cease and desist" letter from LucasArts attornies you may decide to disable iMuse support and remove the old code from the server.