Couple notes / questions about experience with ScummVM Android

[heliummy]

Hi,

I've installed ScummVM on my Samsung Tab S9 tablet, and added a bunch of great P&C adventures - most of which play fine using only a stylus which has an additional button for right-clicks (which comes in handy - for example, in Beavis & Butthead in Virtual Stupidity).


One game that I've installed is Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. One trouble I've run into is that I don't know how I can switch characters between Indy and Sophia. This is normally done with the keyboard C button. Is there a solution for this?

I was thinking it'd be especially convenient if I could add select custom virtual buttons / macros, that I could place wherever on the screen I want, and set a transparency level for. That way, for Fate of Atlantis, I could create a custom button, map it to a keyboard C, and have it sit off on the side of the screen where it's out of the way, and have it be barely visible.


A similar issue is with King's Quest IV. When launching the GoG version, it asks a security verification question in-game, which is of the style "On page 3 [of the user manual], what is the seventh word in the third paragraph?". When I tap the text box with the stylus, no virtual keyboard comes up, so I don't know how to input text to answer the question. Is there a solution for this with just using a stylus? If there was a way to temporarily bring-up a virtual keyboard, or like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, a custom key set, that would be really helpful.


Another issue I encountered is with DOS VGA Secret of Monkey Island. When I load it, the action / verb bar is absent, and the screen is just black below the environment screen. So, I can't perform any actions.

I own the Special Edition of SoMI twice over, but I can't stand that it doesn't allow playing with the original graphics and music for the intro, as the SE graphics and music kill the vibe and starting impression for me, so I want to use the DOS version.

Would the issue I'm experiencing with the action / verb bar just be due to a bad copy of the VGA DOS game, or is it like that with any VGA DOS copy?


I'm really looking forward to the update that will make The Adventures of Willy Beamish work in ScummVM. That was one of the games I added to it, but discovered it didn't work with the version I currently have installed.

[Praetorian]

Normally, in a touch interface, you should be able to bring up the virtual keyboard on demand, by long touch on the "controller mode" icon (the one that is overlayed on the top right of the screen, next to the "hamburger" icon for the ScummVM menu).

I don't have a stylus, but using a physical (bluetooth) mouse seems to work for me; I can long click on the icon, and it will bring the keyboard on-demand, but it's a bit finicky. I first have to put the cursor on the top of the screen (even if the cursor is invisible in-game at the time), which brings up the Android status bar, at which point the mouse cursor becomes visible and I can place it over the "controller mode" icon and perform the click and long-hold.

Unfortunately, without a stylus there's no easy way to test (or develop) for it.

The KQ4 not bringing up the virtual keyboard is indeed odd. It could be an engine-specific (or game specific) bug, or its way of doing things I guess.

Or it might indicate that your Android device has detected a physical keyboard connected, and therefore the virtual keyboard is not shown. This latter is a known issue with Android misunderstanding the connection of some physical devices (eg mouse) as a "keyboard" device. Edit: Recent Scummvm version 2.9.0 should have a fix for this (https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/comm ... 56d01599dd) and as the GitHub commit notes, it is now possible to force showing of the virtual keyboard on demand by long pressing the controller mode icon.

However, if that were the case you would never see the virtual keyboard on ScummVM, when having your stylus connected. Do you see the virtual keyboard, eg. in the ScummVM launcher, when clicking on a text input field?

I am not aware of issues with Monkey Island VGA in Android, but keep in mind, if you're asking for support for a version of the game that you don't own and you've downloaded from abandonware or other site, then ScummVM strictly does not provide support for that, and moreover you're violating the rules (rule #0) of this forum.

There's a relatively easy way to get a version of SoMI VGA with music from the Special Editions with the "Ultimate Talkie" fan made versions by LogicDeluxe, that ScummVM supports (https://gratissaugen.de/ultimatetalkies/). And in development ScummVM builds (2.10.0git) I think that you can also directly load the classic version from a Special edition installation with music and speech, but that's WIP as of yet, and not sure how complete it is.

[heliummy]

Thanks for that information!

I don't have any devices connected to my tablet. But you're right, long-pressing on the controller-mode icon brings-up a virtual keyboard. That's great.

Also, I think I was wrong about Fate of Atlantis having a button to switch characters. I haven't played that game before, and I think some Google Gemini AI search result said the characters can be swapped by pressing 'C'. But there are other in-game functions a keyboard is needed for, so it's good to know how to bring it up.

I had checked-out the Ultimate Talkie edition of SoMI, but didn't like having the voices play. But maybe I can get rid of them by simply deleting the voice audio files. I'll look into that. Thanks!

[Praetorian]

I had checked-out the Ultimate Talkie edition of SoMI, but didn't like having the voices play. But maybe I can get rid of them by simply deleting the voice audio files. I'll look into that. Thanks!

You could set the "Speech Volume" to 0 from the ScummVM "Volume" options for the game.
Or set the "Text and Speech" to "Subtitles" from the Audio options for the game.

Both of these can be done from the ScummVM launcher, via the "Game Options..." (after selecting the game), and then clicking on the Volume or Audio tab. Or while in-game, by bringing up the ScummVM menu (hamburger icon or other hotkey shortcut), then clicking on Options, and adjusting the settings under the Audio tab there.