Elvira series support in-progress for AGOS (Simon) engine?

timofonic · Post by **timofonic** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:33 am

Kirben wrote:
The Madventurer wrote: As Alan Cox replied, it seems Personal Nightmare uses a different engine than AGOS. AGOS is Aber5 based and iPersonal Nightmare it seems uses a lower level language.
They appear to share some common code though, video scripting looked similar, based on debug symbols left in the executable. If the game was added to ScummVM, it would be part of AGOS engine, due to common code in some parts.

Ok, it has sense. I suppose something similar can occour with other engines too, as they can change too much from early versions that are very different.

Kirben wrote:
The Madventurer wrote: About supporting Personal Nightmare in ScummVM: as this game is impossible to find in comercial form or second hand, maybe Adventure Soft can release it as freeware.
Unlikely to happen, check the old interview with Michael Woodroffe at Horrorsoft History web site.

He replied incorrectly on the interview, as Personal Nightmare is not selled comercially anymore. I've only seen Personal Nightmare selled as pirateware. I wouldn't worry if they included in the Elvira pack as extra or as a separate game to be buyed, but that's not the case.

I would like to see the game as freeware or available commercially so people can enjoy the game without finding an impossible to find floppy or in an illegal way. This could help the possibility of ScummVM supporting the game too.

LurkerScum · Post by **LurkerScum** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 3:05 pm

Personal nightmare on the Amiga and Atari St were identical graphically, we used the same graphic files (you can check with m5d checksums the files on disks).
The PC version was released but contained a bug in the file 71.out that corrupted the game in the vicarage section. A fix was available and the game was also finished in VGA but not officially released( review copies were sent out in Germany).

Kirben · Post by **Kirben** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 3:45 am

LurkerScum wrote:The PC version was released but contained a bug in the file 71.out that corrupted the game in the vicarage section. A fix was available and the game was also finished in VGA but not officially released( review copies were sent out in Germany).

Do you actually have the unreleased VGA version of Personal Nightmare?

Also does anyone know where to find the patch for the corrupt 71.out file in the PC version of Personal Nightmare?

sanguinehearts · Post by **sanguinehearts** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:17 pm

This thread was getting buried, and I think its important to try and locate the patch for 71.out so I'm bumping it.

I spent an hour or so looking around online for it but I think the file is so old and might not have ever reached the internet
since I cant actually find a reference to horrorsoft EVER having a website.

weirdly enough I didnt even find a mention of this patch anywhere else. maybe it was distributed on a replacement disk?

I was expecting it to pop up on some forums like dosbox or vogons as I believe the corrupt file actually stops the game from being completed.

maybe someone has it

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:39 pm

sanguinehearts wrote: I was expecting it to pop up on some forums like dosbox or vogons as I believe the corrupt file actually stops the game from being completed.

The Patches Scrolls page didn't turn up anything either. Maybe it's too old.

hippy dave · Post by **hippy dave** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:49 pm

might adventure soft have it?

sanguinehearts · Post by **sanguinehearts** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 6:27 pm

Its quite possible that it is just TOO old, some things get lost, perhaps Alan Cox has it, since he worked on the game engine, or like you say it might be worth contacting Adventure Soft, although I think the reason they dont have Personal Nightmare in the Elvira horror pack might have something to do with the patch not being available.
who knows...

I managed to find out the real account for LurkerScum and have contacted him, hopefully he can shed some light on this.

If he cant provide the answer then I'll contact Alan Cox and Adventure Soft

EDIT: I caved in an contacted them anyway, who knows what will turn up

EDIT 2: It seems Alan Cox does not have the patch.
EDIT 3: The game is patched succesfully in ScummVM(thanks Kirben)

Rikcahrd · Post by **Rikcahrd** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 7:00 pm

I remember a single-sided 5.25-inch diskette issued for a bug in Personal Nightmare (this was in December 1989) you could send away for it. I bought the game in late August 1989, it was also advertised as released on 3.5inch disks in magazines a few months later in 1990.
A shame I didn't read this thread last year as I have seen the VGA version on sale on ebay in the past but didn't buy it as I thought it was fake, now I regret not buying it.

sanguinehearts wrote: EDIT 3: The game is patched succesfully in ScummVM(thanks Kirben)

Out of interest what caused this Vicarage bug was it a simple fix?

Post by **sev** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 7:49 pm

Rikcahrd wrote:Out of interest what caused this Vicarage bug was it a simple fix?

It was a single bit flipped in the data file. Now we patch it in memory to restore and make the decompressor happy.

Eugene

Rikcahrd · Post by **Rikcahrd** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 3:30 pm

sev wrote:
Rikcahrd wrote:Out of interest what caused this Vicarage bug was it a simple fix?
It was a single bit flipped in the data file. Now we patch it in memory to restore and make the decompressor happy.

Eugene

Can this bit be fixed with a simple hex edit on the file (is it the 71.out file talked about above). The scummvm version works good but it doesn't load an old save game I have.

clone2727 · Post by **clone2727** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 4:28 pm

sanguine's post describes the patch in more detail and provides an ips patch.

Kirben · Post by **Kirben** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 10:55 pm

Rikcahrd wrote:The scummvm version works good but it doesn't load an old save game I have.

If you want to use a saved game from the original version, you need to add 8 bytes at the start of saved game file (for saved game name), and rename the saved game file.