FreeSCI in ScummVM

General chat related to ScummVM, adventure gaming, and so on.

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iPwnzorz
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Post by iPwnzorz »

fingolfin wrote:Hu? Is that some kind of obscure trolling? :-)

Of course all FreeSCI supported games are graphical point&click adventures, and hence fit perfectly into ScummVM's scope.
They are not O.o
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Raziel
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Post by Raziel »

iPwnzorz is right

Only the later games were point and click

SCI Kings Quest 4 or Larry 2 and 3 for example were still parser driven
but apart from that, AGI (where not a single game is a point&click game) is added already

I too would love to see SCI games supported, so that i could enjoy a big bunch of my old adventures again,
but i know that forcing someone wouldn't get me anywhere, so i sit still and wait
OmerMor
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Post by OmerMor »

lskovlund: I appreciate all the hard work you and your friends from FreeSCI have done for the community. FreeSCI is a great project and I hope you'll all find the time to continue working on it. I have followed this projects for many years now, and find it fascinating. I also love reading from time to time the SCI manual from your site. The SCI VM is very interesting to learn about.
Please don't get discouraged by impatient people who believe you work for them, and owe them anything.

And about the suggested merger between FreeSCI and ScummVM: I believe in the long run it's inevitable for them to be merged. Someday a motivated person or a group will merge the projects, or reimplement SCI from scratch, because SCI is the biggest missing piece in ScummVM's graphical adventure support. It would be great if this merge would be a product of cooperation between the 2 groups, but even if not, I believe it'll be done someday by a 3rd party.

About the legal issue, and the clean room vs. RE approach: I don't understand why merging a clean room SCI support into the existing non-clean room ScummVM would raise legal issues with Sierra: all the relevant Sierra modules are clean room, so no reason for them to sue, right?
Collector
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Post by Collector »

Raziel wrote:iPwnzorz is right

Only the later games were point and click

SCI Kings Quest 4 or Larry 2 and 3 for example were still parser driven
SCI0 games have mouse support, even the first SCI game, King's Quest 4. Granted, much of the games were still parser driven, but much can be controlled with the mouse (walk and look).
lskovlund
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Post by lskovlund »

Well, I can't seem to find the "blatantly reverse-engineered" bits of code in the SCUMM engine I was thinking about when I wrote that post earlier. Perhaps you have removed them. :)
There are still some "magic tables" and other things in the other engines that look like they were imported rather directly. See for example engines/touche/staticres.cpp
(and not just the fonts).
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md5
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Post by md5 »

Opening that file I see font data and directional data. There's no other obvious way to make the fonts look like the original, and the directional data is not such a big deal...
fingolfin
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Post by fingolfin »

Oh, of course quite a lot of our code comes from direct reverse engineering, done using various disassemblers, and we never made a secret out of this.
lskovlund
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Post by lskovlund »

OmerMor wrote: About the legal issue, and the clean room vs. RE approach: I don't understand why merging a clean room SCI support into the existing non-clean room ScummVM would raise legal issues with Sierra: all the relevant Sierra modules are clean room, so no reason for them to sue, right?
The problem is not really the rest of ScummVM, nor is it what's currently in FreeSCI. The problem is that the second FreeSCI is merged with ScummVM, the code will no longer be held to the same high legal standards it used to. Cf. code in some engines that looks like it was taken directly from the binaries and converted to C++. We waited for someone to come along and write an alternative pathfinding algorithm, for example, to avoid a patent. Meanwhile, the (patented) iMuse is currently in the ScummVM tree. And ScummVM has received legal threats from Lucasarts in the past, IIRC. We have not.
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SuperDre
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Post by SuperDre »

We waited for someone to come along and write an alternative pathfinding algorithm, for example, to avoid a patent. Meanwhile, the (patented) iMuse is currently in the ScummVM tree. And ScummVM has received legal threats from Lucasarts in the past, IIRC. We have not.
not to downplay the importance of this, but Sierra and Lucasarts have a 'software' patent, and that patent is only viable in the states, so if the distribution is not statesite, then there should be no problem. We europeans don't/can't have software patents (yet)..
timofonic
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Post by timofonic »

SuperDre wrote:We europeans don't/can't have software patents (yet)..
If software patents come to Europe, I'll consider seriously emigrate to another country in the future.
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Post by exofreeze »

iPwnzorz wrote:
fingolfin wrote:Hu? Is that some kind of obscure trolling? :-)

Of course all FreeSCI supported games are graphical point&click adventures, and hence fit perfectly into ScummVM's scope.
They are not O.o
Whether its point a& click or parser (and as it has been stated already, all the SCI games have mouse support) is irrelevant.

Your original statement claimed that "they are completely different games". And that is complete bull.
rZr
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Post by rZr »

FreeSCI, or any SCI engine in ScummVM would be the cherry on top of ScummVM.

I won't hold my breath but I sincerely hope one day this will be possible.
zewb
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Post by zewb »

It really doesn't matter. You can always use DOSBox, which works perfectly well with all the SCI games, unlike FreeSCI which only supports the early versions of SCI.
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Post by NLS »

zewb I visited (again) this thread because I read your original reply (which you apparently edited) :)

since I revisited the thread: one more vote and one more hoping to see SCI in SCUMMVM some day
timofonic
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Post by timofonic »

What do you mean? Why bumping this forum thread just for that reply that lacks interesting content?
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