The Bizarre Adventures Of Woodruff And The Schnibble

[Radioactive Grandpa]

Hello all.
I kinda got lost between those philosophic-geek jokes (don't forget the sound! It rocks in Real-Life™ ) and those video issues. I also have just noticed that this thread was just bumped, from almost a year before.
I'd really like to know what's going on about Woodruff support. I guess it's a known issue, so could you direct me to the current reference about it?

I'd want to say another word to the developers: I really like ScummVm and thank you so much for creating this high-quality tool.
Woodruff is an old game, but not old enough to be played at DOS environment, and therefore unlike most supported games by ScummVm, it can't be played by DOS emulators (such as DOSBox).
Woodruff is played pretty bad on windows XP - it suffers from many bugs and memory mismatches. As the way it looks to my layman eyes, ScummVm could be the best engine to run this game perfectly nowadays.

I hope I managed to innovate anything at all, and hopefully to spur some of your list of priorities.

Thank you, and sorry for the poor English quality.

[DrMcCoy]

I'd really like to know what's going on about Woodruff support. I guess it's a known issue, so could you direct me to the current reference about it?

There's no real "current reference". The official status is simply "unsupported".

Inofficially, I'm making headway. The video issues seem to be solved (although I still can't say for sure whether I overlooked something).

Things still missing/not working I already know of:
1) Saving/Loading (my attempt commited yesterday doesn't work)
2) At least one object video (the one when you enter the bar, it locks up the game in the English version)
3) Leaving the menu cleanly without clicking anything
4) Object video glitches (flickering when switching to object videos, object videos exchanging frames)

Except for these few issues, it looks good so far. Of course, I haven't had a run-through yet, so there might be more problems up ahead (in fact, I bet there will be ).

All in all, full support could be near. Or more teeth-gnashing on my part.

Woodruff is an old game, but not old enough to be played at DOS environment, and therefore unlike most supported games by ScummVm, it can't be played by DOS emulators (such as DOSBox).

If your system is fairly new/fast and you still have an old Windows version laying around (Nothing newer than Windows 2000, I'd say), you could try a full PC emulation (like VMWare, Virtual PC or QEMU) (VirtualBox doesn't work because its display driver doesn't support 256 color mode, which Woodruff needs).

[KainXVIII]

And music don`t change when you enter at new location (like bridge) - you need to turn off music in options then on - and it will be playing
.. just like in ORIGINAL version under windows98 - i wonder why ?

[DrMcCoy]

.. just like in ORIGINAL version under windows98 - i wonder why ?

Well, the scripts don't request a music change when changing screens. Since only the scripts know where which music is played, there's nothing I can do about that.

[Radioactive Grandpa]

Hey, I just wanted to say that it's great to hear that it's really being working on (of course it was "officially unsupported", but like I saw this "to-do list" in this thread, I thought I might be missing other things).
And I was coming to suggest an assistance with beta-testing and bug-spotting, but then I saw a very nice message on the News section.

Thank you!
(expect reports soon, perhaps next week.)

[FastIkarus]

First one thing: Thanks for Woodruff working in ScummVM and since it is in compatibility list, I'd like to ask about one issue.
During video-scenes, like intro, I have some desync between sound and video. Is it known bug and is there some kind of solution now?

[DrMcCoy]

Have you tried a latest daily build / current SVN checkout? That should be fixed...

[FastIkarus]

Just before while and it works great, thanks

[dsy]

After I've been waiting to be able to play Woodruff again for years and regularly checking ScummVM's support for it I somehow managed to stay ignorant of it for over a month...

I eventually found out two days ago, so I had to test Woodruff at once. I finished the game today, without any problems (apart from minor graphical glitches, that you already know about).

I noticed something that might be related to bug #1994372 (Pathfinding bug). When you click exactly between two stairs (i.e. on the vertical part connecting two stairs) Woodruff gets stuck in a walk cycle and keeps going back and forth. This can be reproduced at several locations (for instance the stairs in the Area of the Brotoflatron). It's not really a problem though, you just have to click somewhere else to get Woodruff free again. This also happens when you click on the stair between the letter A and the billboard in the Street of the sad Boozook.

[English game version, svn July 5]

Huge thanks to DrMcCoy and the rest of the team!

[LunaVorax]

Yesterday's svn was working perfectly with Woodruff on my computer.
Today's build (on another computer) doesn't work at all ! It shows me the introduction, then the credits, and then when I hit the "Esc" key, it crashes !!

Does it came from my computer or from the new svn ?

[eriktorbjorn]

Yesterday's svn was working perfectly with Woodruff on my computer.
Today's build (on another computer) doesn't work at all ! It shows me the introduction, then the credits, and then when I hit the "Esc" key, it crashes !!

Does it came from my computer or from the new svn ?

It seems to be working still for me, though I haven't played the game much.

[Rasi]

Hi.. great work on the Woodruff engine.. Sadly my fears have become true: The Sound of the german version is totally borked... there is always a phrakture of talk missing in the beginning. Back when i bought it, i thought it was because of my slow cdrom.. Now i have to realise its because of the datafiles themselves...

..Impossible to play like this - things like this made me hate Sierra (anyone remember the CD version of Space Quest 6? *g* - you couldnt finish it and the only "patch" Sierra provided was a save game to start past the affected scene)

[Ceri Cat]

Couldn't finish SQVI?!? I had no such trouble with my complete collection set. If you're referring to the bug in sickbay with the datacard then that wasn't Sierra's fault it's actually related to the speed of your PC, there are other solutions such as using a throttling tool for that segment.

Having a single problem like that shouldn't completely ruin your enjoyment of a game or the small lapse in sound on Woodruff. Games always come out with bugs, it stinks but sometimes you just have to bear with it because there's no alternative available to you. When I first got my SQ Collection discs I had to play without most of my sound because of the DOS drivers (and VDMSound wasn't playing nice), not great but you can deal with it.

Sorry I'm not sympathetic to your complaint, but if the game is completeable despite the bug then please don't let it annoy you so much. It's hardly as buggy as Rent-a-Hero.

[Collector]

Rasi, you are aware that the timer bugs in SQ6 have been fix by NewRisingSun, aren't you? Besides, speed bugs are not an issue with DOSBox.

[Ozzie]

Rent a Hero is buggy?
But not the german version!? I played that one!