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.

Hooray!

[k98sven]

Now Monkey Island lives again!

Just one question: Does this violate the DMCA? Given the copy-protection schemes in the games, that is.

I've got a question....

[unformed]

I'm just a beginning programmer, so maybe I'm missing the point...

But how exactly do you go about finding the detailsof the SCUMM syntax so you can make an interpreter for it. Is it all reverse-engineered or is there actually a doc available on it.

Also, is the purpose of the interpreter so you can play the game on multiple platforms? If so, that's pretty cool: the fact that the game is written in an interpreted language and you just have to create an interpreter for the macinhe...

anyways, it'd be nice if someone could answer those questions. Thanks

Re:I've got a question....

[eddy]

It's reverse-engineering all the way. I know this because I've been doing a little of it myself for the old original-SCUMMs (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken).

Check the code if you don't believe me, you don't produce code (or identifiers) like that below from reimplementing something the clean way:

if (dseg_4F8A) { screenEffect(_newEffect); dseg_4F8A = 0; clearClickedStatus(); }

Good work, Ludvig.

Reverse engineering vs. clean-room

[jameson]

Reverse-engineering is the 'straightforward' path. The problem with this is that it raises copyright problems; if LucasArts cared, they might try to sue them (the Win32 only NAGI [dingoblue.net.au] interpreter has the same problem).

The FreeSCI project (and, for the most part, Sarien) have chosen the more painful path of a clean-room reimplementation for this reason: One group does the decoding and documents everything, the other group implements (and, occasionally, guesses). IANAL, but as far as I know, this is perfectly legal.
(OK, reverse engineering for interoperability purposes is legal anyway, but not in some foreign countries like the US).

A similar project worth mentioning

[mrAgreeable]

Is Exult, at http://exult.sourceforge.net [sourceforge.net]. It's an intepreter for the Ultima 7 series of games. It's nearly perfect, and in many ways improved over the original. (Characters open doors, improved combat, higher res, antialiasing, etc)

The copy protection is worth mentioning in those games. It wasn't built into the .exe so much as it was built into the game's scripting system, so to accurately port the game they had to port the copy protection. I actually had to go cosult the original docs to get past the copy protection. Which seemed crazy since the game was written for a different OS 12 or so years ago.

You'll need the original data files to play it, of course, which I'm sure is the same with scummvm.

Linux?

[thallgren]

Not to be an antagonist, but why does the title say "Linux SCUMM Interpreter" when in fact I'm sure this works on most OS's?

Regards, Tommy

ScummVM patent issues

[strigeus]

Hello!

I'm the author of ScummVM.

I've support for iMuse (which is the music engine used in some SCUMM games) almost finished, but since iMuse is patented by LucasArts, I'm worried about releasing it because of possible patent infringements.

Does anyone know anything about this, and if it's safe for me to release this source code?

I do live in Sweden in Europe, and as far as I know, Europe is not covered by us patent laws.

Regards,
Ludvig Strigeus

Semi-related question

[Anthracks]

I'll probably get modded down for this, but has anyone seen an interpreter that can run the original Gabriel Knight, from Sierra? It's one of my all-time favorites, but it doesn't get on well with Windows 2000. None of the Sierra interpreters, like FreeSCI, seem to run it either...has anyone had more luck than me in getting it to run?