Best program to develop a new adventure to be used with SCUM

[eriktorbjorn]

Then, it would be much easier if he would hand his source code and allow it to use under GPL.

Neither of which is likely to happen, according to the aforementioned AGS FAQ.

[SSH]

from the AGS FAQ (as outdated as it may seem, it's on the HP and therefore active)

You don't need to quote the AGS FAQ at me. I've met CJ personally, I've got more games with credits than anyone else using AGS, I've used the program for nearly 5 years and I can look the FAQ up in the wayback machine and find it identical in 2002 (on an old url): http://web.archive.org/web/200208061015 ... /acfaq.htm

I'm guessing that these responses are some kind of patronising rite-of-passage intended to get rid of time-wasters.... don't worry, I understand.

(2) The AGS file formats are proprietary to make it harder for people to "hack" other people's games. If the source code was available, it would be easy for someone to write some sort of de-compiler for use with other peoples games.

Which I addressed, saying that people would still need to target ScummVM

Contacting the developers

The easiest way to contact the ScummVM team is by submitting bug reports (see reporting-bugs) or by using our forums. You can also join and email the scummvm-devel mailing list (see [1]). Or chat with us on IRC (channel #scummvm on irc.freenode.net).

Thanks for reiterating those pointers. I wanted to ask permission here first where I had a chance to explain better before barging in to an IRC channel where no-ones knows me from Adam.

As for permission from CJ, I will ask him and wouldn't do it if he was opposed, but refusing to talk to me about internals until I have some kind of indemnity sounds a little wierd. I guess there must be some kind of grudge against AGS people or something here.

[md5]

AGS and ScummVM are quite different, perhaps it could be feasible to port a game's resources over, but on the other hand game logic is quite a beast, and it's not so trivial to read that from XML files.

Also, ScummVM is tied to a license, namely GPL, whereas AGS has its own kind of license.

If you get permission from the author of AGS then that's great, but on the other hand he distributes AGS as closed source for his own reasons, and I'm not sure how his work could be tied into an open source project, unless he wants to open some parts of the AGS source code to the public (which he is reluctant to do).

As for internals, you are free to look at how ScummVM works from its source code, which has always been open and ask any specific questions you want

[sev]

I can look the FAQ up in the wayback machine and find it identical in 2002

That's understandable. But since he did not update it, we just assume that those statements are still valid.

I guess there must be some kind of grudge against AGS people or something here.

Not at all. We point to AGS on a regular basis as to a reliable and most up-to-date way to create adventure games without paying any kind of royalty. From the other hand we regularly, perhaps each other month receive a request about adding AGS to our engines collection. Whereas we ourselves do not see any problems with it from technical side, our policy is not to merge maintained projects without author's permission and if possible, collaboration. That is, we got FOTAQ, Reinherit, Gob, Sarien, TrollVM, CinE, CruisE, Igor engines only after they were either completely abandoned by their authors or their authors joined our team. And even in case of abandoned projects we always contact their authors beforehand.

So, take a look at AGS situation now. We have their FAQ. We see requests about merge with ScummVM both on our forms and on AGS forums as well. Still we saw no reply from the AGS author. This leads us to conclusion that he does not want it. Simple as that.

Again, we have nothing against if Chris will switch to our infrastructure and join our project. It will make great number of excellent games available to bigger masses and I am sure will make AGS even more popular. (Consider iPhone ). Of course, it will require some tweaks, as, for instance, current AGS implementation supports external modules via precompiled DLLs which is not portable, but all those questions could be resolved. So talk to Chris


Eugene

[SSH]

I can look the FAQ up in the wayback machine and find it identical in 2002

That's understandable. But since he did not update it, we just assume that those statements are still valid.

A fair enough assumption. However, AGS's screen redraw code has actually been optimised since then and so it requires less resource now than it did then. Most games at 320x200 res will work on a Pentium 2 or better. Since 5 or 6 years has seen a huge increase in the power of handhelds which typically ran on a 68000-derivative in those days and now run on, say, high-speed ARM 11 processors and have 1000 times the memory capacity, its not unreasonable to assume that a modern handheld could cope.


Most AGS games don't use DLL plugins, especially those written for portability, so ignoring those that do isn't a biggie, I think.

If I want to ask specific questions about the backend, which forum is the best place to put them? A new thread in this forum, perhaps?

[fingolfin]

Post a new thread in this forum -- or use our mailing list. Or ask on IRC.

Still, to once more reiterate: You will have to fork ScummVM if you want to make a AGS engine, as we won't accept one, unless the AGS author explicitly gives written permission to do so. Even then, personally, I would be very reluctant to accept such an engine unless the AGS author goes even further and starts to collarborate himself. The problem being that AGS is actively developed, so if we tried to implement a second version of the engine from scratch, we'd always play "catch me" with him while trying to achieve compatibility.

[sev]

Still, to once more reiterate: You will have to fork ScummVM if you want to make a AGS engine, as we won't accept one, unless the AGS author explicitly gives written permission to do so. Even then, personally, I would be very reluctant to accept such an engine unless the AGS author goes even further and starts to collarborate himself.

Seconded. I.e. as I told above, we would not object if Chris himself will decide to switch development to the new platform. He will definitely benefit from that, and even I think he will get more engine developers from AGS community. But the on-going efforts of a second runner following AGS development is not an option.


Eugene

[rivadolmo]

A new Topic has been created for the 'AGS To SCUMMVM' folder?

Thank you

It would be a great step toward adventure's modding creativity.

That's the main reason for Chris refuse?

[eriktorbjorn]

That's the main reason for Chris refuse?

I don't know Chris, or his motivations, but the AGS FAQ (am I starting to sound like a broken record?) gives the two main reasons for why AGS is closed source.

[rivadolmo]

...a code of a tool like AGS?

Would be an idea to collect some money through a donate campaign to reward the coding efforts of Chris?

[md5]

Through us? We're a different project...

[SSH]

anyway, CJ has consistently refused donations because they would make him feel guilty when he doesn't feel like updating the program.

[df]

Just look at this example.

whats wrong with the zork mdl code? mdl was essentially a dialect of lisp. I dont think its unreadable...

zork forever!

[eriktorbjorn]

Just look at this example.

whats wrong with the zork mdl code? mdl was essentially a dialect of lisp. I dont think its unreadable...

zork forever!

Well, I can get a general idea about parts of it - mostly because I've played the Zork games, including one (not quite complete) Fortran version of Dungeon. But files like parser.mud? Not without great difficulty. Probably not ever. Not to mention tell.mud, which looks like assembly wrapped in MDL syntax.

Anyway, I used it to illustrate that plain text isn't necessarily plain to everyone.

[rivadolmo]

The biggest and toughest way has been opened by ScummVm project... the second one may be a easy tool to develop adventures playable through ScummVm..that may form the new generation of adventures' makers...anyone could write a crossplatform adventure and have the possibility to be discovered by a large audiance.

How much could cost a tool like AGS?

It's like to give a pen to green writers...

But is it mandatory to have the code of AGS or it's just important to have Chris permission to implement it in ScummVm ?