Ringworld

Rafael_GC · Post by **Rafael_GC** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 4:28 am

Hello everybody, could anyone in there who is responsible for the ScummVM programming tell me if you know an adventure called "Ringworld", and if it could be supported by ScummVM??

This is a fantastic game, a very fine futuristic adventure. Check out some links for screens of the game:

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/rafa_elgc/Ring1.JPG

Actually there are two games on this Ringworld series. The first one is “Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch”, and the other is “Return to Ringworld”, both of them are very good.

Here's a short profile on the second game.

http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue2 ... ring1.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue2 ... ring2.html

I've tried running both on DOSBox but they get a lot of graphic glitches and a desyncronized sound.

Well then, that's it. I hope ScummVM can emulate these two adventures, and maybe others which may even not be in your plans.

Vinterstum · Post by **Vinterstum** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:13 am

Those screenshots were located on an abandonware site, I'm afraid (Hence breaking rule 0). If you want to link to them, please host them somewhere else

.

That said, I love Larry Niven's universe, though I haven't played these games myself. Would be interesting to take a look at some point.

dreammaster · Post by **dreammaster** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:48 am

If you'd like to get ScummVM to support the games, there's things you can do even if you're not a programmer. Chief amongst them would be to track down who holds the current rights to the game, and contact them to see whether they'd be willing to make the games freeware and/or release the source code for them to act as a base for a ScummVM module.

Without source code, it's unlikely the game would ever be supported. Not impossible; I'm currently working on disassembling the Lure of the Temptress module; but it's a major task, and I wouldn't have started it if the game wasn't freeware and thus easy for people to download.

Zer02 · Post by **Zer02** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 1:01 pm

Yes they are both good games, I hope you will take dreammaster's advice and start to track down the legal owner for those games.

I’m currently involved in a similar task, for the games:
STAR TREK: 25th Anniversary
and
STAR TREK: Judgments Rites

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 1:59 pm

Zer02 wrote:Yes they are both good games, I hope you will take dreammaster's advice and start to track down the legal owner for those games.

I’m currently involved in a similar task, for the games:
STAR TREK: 25th Anniversary
and
STAR TREK: Judgments Rites

As a major Star Trek fan, I'd love to see 25th Anniversary run in ScummVM.

That really would be great, as it's a very athmospheric, yet difficult game.

Zer02 · Post by **Zer02** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 2:24 pm

Well i seems that most of the data files for 25th Anniversary have alredy been de coded
look her:
.DIR - .001 .ANM .BMP .MAP .PAL .PRI

and for Judgments Rites
i have found info on the files

.MVE Player
.ANM Playerlook for DeluxePaint Animation Player Utility

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 2:34 pm

Ah, "Judgments Rites", i recally playing that a long time ago, was indeed a nice adventure. Yeah, would be nice if we supported it... Ringworld looks nice, too. But then, many other adventures out there do

Decoded formats help, but it's only a tiny fraction of the work that needs to be done to reimplement a full adventure game engine. So unless we get access to the source *and* some people step up who are willing to do this, none of these games are going to get supporter, I am afraid.

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 3:01 pm

fingolfin wrote:Ah, "Judgments Rites", i recally playing that a long time ago, was indeed a nice adventure. Yeah, would be nice if we supported it... Ringworld looks nice, too. But then, many other adventures out there do

Decoded formats help, but it's only a tiny fraction of the work that needs to be done to reimplement a full adventure game engine. So unless we get access to the source *and* some people step up who are willing to do this, none of these games are going to get supporter, I am afraid.

I have both Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek: Judgment Rites and I agree that they are nice games, even though the ship-to-ship fighting was annoying in the first one. If we were to somehow acquire the source code for them, and it was in such shape that I could understand it, I know I'd be interested in helping out with them.

Zer02 · Post by **Zer02** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 3:21 pm

I never managed to destroy the Enterprise 2 i the ship-to-ship fithing.

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 3:48 pm

Zer02 wrote: I never managed to destroy the Enterprise 2 i the ship-to-ship fithing.

Me neither. That's what was so annoying about it.

I did manage to destroy one of its accompanying ships, though. Once. I wish I could blame it on my computer not being fast enough to play the game smoothly under DOSbox, but I have a feeling it would be pretty darn difficult either way. Eventually, I gave up and started playing Judgment Rites instead. To my great relief, the first thing that game did was to ask me how difficult I wanted ship-to-ship combat to be. I would guess they must have gotten some feedback from the users of the first game...

cappuchok · Post by **cappuchok** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:25 am

dreammaster wrote:If you'd like to get ScummVM to support the games, there's things you can do even if you're not a programmer. Chief amongst them would be to track down who holds the current rights to the game, and contact them to see whether they'd be willing to make the games freeware and/or release the source code for them to act as a base for a ScummVM module.

In the case of Ringworld, I'm pretty sure that the author of the books would have to give his approval at some point as well, and getting his approval first would propably make it considerably easier to get the cooperation of whoever is in possession of the actual code and rights to the same.

As for Star Trek, Viacom would most likely have to be involved before going to Interplay. Viacom owns Paramount, who owns the Star Trek franchise. Interplay made the games back then, but I'm not sure how active they are today. Modern Star Trek games seem to be made by Activision, so they might hold some required rights as well.

Hope this helps.

MasterGrazzt · Post by **MasterGrazzt** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:31 pm

Tsunami Media did those games, but they closed. I assume the rights to video game versions of Known Space reverted right back to Larry Niven.

I've played both of these games, actually. The first one is kind of... uninteractive. Much of the game is spent in story sequences. It's an alright plot about a friend of Louis Wu, Quinn, who if I remember correctly used to work for ARM, and Speaker-to-Animals' son, and they have to travel to you-know-where.

The second one is more interactive, but there's an annoying puzzle sequence near the "end of the beginning".