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Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games

ScummVM 0.12.0 Released — Support For New Games, Wiimote 76

Posted by Soulskill from the old-but-new dept.
Croakyvoice writes "The ScummVM Team has released a new version of their program that allows owners of many systems to play the old point and click adventure games of yesteryear. This release sees support for 5 new games — The Legend of Kyrandia: Book Two: Hand of Fate, The Legend of Kyrandia: Book Three: Malcolm's Revenge, Lost in Time, The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble and Drascula: The Vampire Strikes Back. The new version officially supports, for the first time, the Gamecube and the Wii, and also the ability to use the Wiimote as a controller. The binaries and the source code are both available."
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ScummVM 0.12.0 Released — Support For New Games, Wiimote More

ScummVM 0.12.0 Released — Support For New Games, Wiimote

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  • Thanks devs! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by XanC ( 644172 ) on Monday September 01, 2008 @06:45PM (#24836133)

    Because of the ScummVM guys, we can play these fantastic older games in completely modern environments. Can anything beat Monkey Island, I ask you?

  • Wii Adventure Games (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AndrewStephens ( 815287 ) on Monday September 01, 2008 @06:49PM (#24836171) Homepage

    Nintendo should really be pushing its developers to do this kind of thing. The Wiimote is perfect for point-n-click adventures and the gameplay would suit the causal, cooperative style of play that the Wii embodies.

    An official, licensed version of Monkey Island (for example) would more than pay for itself, especially since the dev costs would be minimal.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by quantumplacet ( 1195335 )

      Zak and Wiki was a well funded, well advertised original IP in the vain of classic point and click adventures developed specifically for the Wii. It sold extremely poorly. I doubt we'll see studios lining up to make adventure games for the console. The simple fact is it was once a great genre and still has it's fans, but it's quasi interactive style just feels outdated in the modern gaming world.

      • Re:Wii Adventure Games (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Jorophose ( 1062218 ) on Monday September 01, 2008 @07:33PM (#24836519)

        Zak and Wiki was an excellent game but it got overshadowed by 1st party games.

        Blame the retailers. 1st party games remain king but they won't keep cool looking games like Zak and Wiki because they want to try out shovelwares (possibly to prove they're shovelware).

        (please stop using IP in that sense, when you do you ruin the point of being alive some days. "intellectual property" should be illegal. It's not an acronym we should all know by heart. =/)

        • Zak and Wiki was an excellent game but it got overshadowed by 1st party games.

          Blame the retailers. 1st party games remain king but they won't keep cool looking games like Zak and Wiki because they want to try out shovelwares (possibly to prove they're shovelware).

          And don't forget that Zak and Wiki was not advertised to speak of. Most titles you can't release with minimal marketing and expect it to do well; especially titles without famous franchise characters.

          That being said, the Strong Bad games being released on Wiiware will likely do very well. They are point and click aventures, but the well known name will pull people in like a hyphen.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by renegadesx ( 977007 )
        It was a shame Zack & Wiki did poorley, however good point and click adventures dont need the latest and greatest etc. I think WiiWare (once they solve that bloody storage problem) could be the perfect model for this genre.

        Point and click adventures have their audience but will never sell as well as the more popular genre's of today. However used right it can have decent success (Phoenix Wright).
        • If you're looking for WiiWare, Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People (SBCG4AP) [telltalegames.com], is available on Wiiware. I'm pretty sure it's a point and click type adventure game. I've been meaning to look up more info about it.
          • Strong Bad is the first Wiiware title I bought and I really like it. I love Telltale Games from their Sam and Max series, and Strong Bad so far is pretty much the same thing in a new skin - which is a good thing! I'm particularly impressed with how much speech audio they can squeeze into that little download.
      • Zak and Wiki was a great game but I would not say it was advertised much. The only places I had seen it was some short review in a magazine and a few gaming sites. Also on release day the only place I could find it was Best Buy, no Walmart, Gamestop, etc...
    • I've played these games on my Wii. Personally, I find it doesn't work very well. With some reprogramming, it might, but as for playing them as is, it doesn't work.Pointing at the little text blurbs on the screen to select your action is quite slow, and requires more aim than I'm willing to exert effort into doing, and waving your wiimote all over every screen to find the items to click on is tedious.
  • Is there a way to make new games for this system? I'd love to do an interactive graphic novel but most of the mature free tools for that sort of thing are Japanese and next to impossible to use. I've looked over the website and don't see an editor or creation kit.

    Suggestions for other Free/OS interactive graphic novel creation tools are welcome.

    Jonah HEX

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      Suggestions for other Free/OS interactive graphic novel creation tools are welcome.

      The ScummVM maintainers recommend [scummvm.org] using Lua or Python with some layer around DirectX [pygame.org]. No, I don't know of any code libraries or other tools to make creation of an interactive graphic novel easier.

      • Pygame is pretty slow. At least under linux, because it uses OpenGL.

        Pyglet (runs with openGL), Rabbyt (C-based spriting lib for pyglet, so it's much faster), and Squirtle (if you want SVG), makes a nicer platform.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by GiMP ( 10923 )

          Pygame is a python wrapper for SDL, which is abstracts the display. It supports accelerated 2d canvas drawing, it supports surfaces which are more or less sprites. SDL (and by extention, pygame) also supports OpenGL.

          Regarding OpenGL being "slow", I'm not sure where you're getting that idea from. OpenGL is plenty fast if you have hardware acceleration and don't use unaccelerated functions like glDrawPixels.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gringer ( 252588 )

        Python with some layer around DirectX

        You could also try Pyglet [pyglet.org]. Unfortunately, it has a few options for graphics/input/sound, rather than DirectX, so may be a bit tricky to get working.

    • Ren'Py [renpy.org] is pretty basic (the "Py" is for python). I'd rate it as slightly better than clicking through an Impress [openoffice.org] presentation. But the documentation seems English enough to me, and there's even a simple and rather silly demo game for you to get a feel of the game engine features (or lack thereof). Official packages for Debian and Ubuntu are available for point-and-click installation via synaptic.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Wumpus ( 9548 )

      Have you tried SLUDGE, from http://www.hungrysoftware.com/ [hungrysoftware.com] ?

      It's not open source, but at least it isn't in Japanese. There used to be a pretty active user community around it a few years ago.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Wumpus ( 9548 )

        Allow me to correct myself: SLUDGE is open source, it turns out. That's a pretty recent development.

    • Try Adventure Game Studio [adventureg...udio.co.uk]. It's perfectly able and there are many great games that have been created with it.
      • Try Adventure Game Studio. It's perfectly able and there are many great games that have been created with it.
        .

        None better perhaps than the LucasFan remake Maniac Mansion Deluxe [bigbluecup.com]

        The problem as always is not in finding the "perfect" game engine but in assembling the talent needed to develop the game as a whole: story, dialog, art and animation, music and effects.

  • Great to see them expanding support for this great piece of software. Is there much left that doesn't run this now?

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The only things I would like ScummVM to handle now are AGI and SCI games so we can play the Space Quest, King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry games on it.

  • I tried ScummVM for my Wii, not impressed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) * on Monday September 01, 2008 @09:19PM (#24837421) Journal

    Firstly the graphics code was stock standard, none of the sweet filtering options were available, it looked blocky and jagged (I tried several games, including Full Throttle)
    The Xbox 1 version however, the graphics code was substantially better./

    What is far, far more interesting though, is how terrible the Wiimote is as a mouse device, it's not comfortable to be moving my wrist around constantly up down left right, a little left, a little right, diagnol left and up, hold this button unhold that.
    In a surprise result, I found playing on my Xbox 1 far more relaxing, laying back, both hands on my lap with the big old 'duke' controller in my lap just using the thumbsticks, perhaps they have better acceleration and accuracy code than you'd expect but honestly - using the XB controller is really not bad at all.

    Oh one other thing, the Wii read performance from the SD card is abysmal - absoloutely frightfully abysmal, that system really shows its limitations when you start peeking under the hood. (SD only, not HDSC for example) - I wouldn't be surprised if the USB ports were 1.0 or 1.01 (I don't know?)

    Good to see more releases though, Scumm VM is fantastic.

    • The Xbox 1 version however, the graphics code was substantially better./

      Well, hacking the xbox is fairly well understood now & code is very mature their. Wii hacking on the other hand is very new, poorly understood & still in alpha.

      What is far, far more interesting though, is how terrible the Wiimote is as a mouse device

      See my first point. Why are you comparing an alpha release to an ancient release?

      I wouldn't be surprised if the USB ports were 1.0 or 1.01 (I don't know?)

      Nope 2.0

      • See my first point. Why are you comparing an alpha release to an ancient release?

        Handling of the controller is likely how it is because Nintendo neglected to include the "Wii motion plus" peripheral in the beginning (as they should have)

        • Handling of the controller is likely how it is because Nintendo neglected to include the "Wii motion plus"

          Wii MotionPlus is related to 3d motion & not particularly relevant to your original complaint of wiimote:mouse mapping.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by grumbel ( 592662 )

          This has nothing to do with MotionPlus, which even if it was available, wouldn't be used in mouse situation, since thats something the IR sensor does mostly by itself. The issue is simply a result of the Wiimote design itself. Pointing at small objects is pretty annoying when you actually have to aim at them and try to keep your hand steady, with the mouse you simply move it into position and the cursor stays on spot. Its pretty much the same thing on the DS, sounds cool in theory and kind of works, but it

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ProppaT ( 557551 )

        Yes and no. As far as programming apps, such as a Scumm emulator, it's basically the same as programming aps for the GameCube. Homebrew GC has been going on nearly as long as homebrew Xbox so, while it's true that this is an early release and it explains the poor quality, it's not because of the infancy of programming a graphics engine for the gc/wii.

    • Are you using an HDTV by chance? Every time I play an old, low resolution game on SDTV it ends up looking far smoother and nicer than my monitor, and text is just as readable as well. This was certainly true of ScummVM on my Dreamcast, at least.

      • ScummVM on Xbox filters - on my 50" plasma via component (unsure if it scales to 720 / 1080 but my Xbox 1 can do it and XBMC does)
        ScummVM on the Wii, same TV, component also, sharp as hell pixels as all the superhawk, super sample, eagle 5x or whatever the heck they are, are not implimented.

        • I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that your Xbox filters the output internally? If so, that's pretty sweet. The Xbox controller isn't the best for ScummVM though, I'd think. My favourite version (other than PC) is my Nintendo DS. The stylus is a great input scheme for those games.

          • The Xbox version has the filtering code included, the Wii port does not, why I don't know as it should be about as powerful as an Xbox 1 anyhow as far as I know.
            I was under the impression the Wii code was a port of the latest standard build, which does include said filters, perhaps not.

    • ??

      abysmal
      A adjective
      1 abysmal, abyssal, unfathomable
                        so deep as to be unmeasurable; "the abyssal depths of the ocean"
      2 abysmal
                        very great; limitless; "abysmal misery"; "abysmal stupidity"

      • Really?
        Really, you're going to grammer nazi someone in 2008? Seriously?
        I mean, I'll do it for these dipshits who say 'legos' 'for cheap' or 'anyways' but for abysmal?

        1. of or like an abyss; immeasurably deep or great.
        2. extremely or hopelessly bad or severe: abysmal ignorance; abysmal poverty.

        You're not another one of the Wii defence force, are you?

        • No, I'm not any grammer nazi, essentially because english is not my first language, but, AFAIK, and the dictionaries I was consulting where telling me, 'abysmal' is sinonim with 'vast', so I wast mostly confused...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      Where did you find the Xbox port of XBMC? Last one I tried [xbox-scene.com] there was a problem with the video resolution, the screen would be cropped around the sides. If you know a port that works better, let me know.

  • recently I've been playing the iPhone version and aside from semi-frequent crashes i feel it's a near perfect platform for scummvm. the screen is low-res enough that it doesnt need super-fancy scaling algorithms, while the DPI is high enough that everything looks beautiful. lucasarts adventures in my pocket, everywhere I go, awesome! If only it was allowed in the official app store

    Disclaimer: I know it was out on pocketpcs/other pdas years ago, but I never owned one. bite me

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by am 2k ( 217885 )

      I had some problems with scummvm on the iPhone (tried Monkey Island 2 & Indiana Jones 4).

      The main problem is that the games aren't designed for it, and so you have to click on things that are a tenth of the area of your finger, most of the time I just missed them. Additionally, you don't see the items highlighted, because you aren't moving the cursor around at all.

      I had to switch to trackpad mode all the time, and then my finger was obstructing the screen.

  • This seems like a good way to create educational games, of the visually sparse (ha!) but still fun choose-your-adventure variety, like Oregon Trail. Is it easy to create content? Can anyone recommend tools to do so, to run under Linux?

    timothy

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