The Waxworks is open (DOS version too)

vinehair · Post by **vinehair** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 5:39 pm

Hi guys, new user and a big fan of the Horrorsoft games here. Recently saw that ScummVM supported AGOS but had Waxworks marked as untested. Eh?!?! I'm on it!

I've already gotten through the Victorian and the Mine just fine. To the poster above with a crash - the game seems to crash at very specific events if things are done out of order, and you may have found another one, I'd personally check in the original game. The example I know of is a pain in the ass to test, in the Pyramid. Spoiler in white below:

If you don't pick up the jar of oil in the very first room, when you come up to the snake trap, if you try and pick up the tile the game will crash, this in DOS version it would crash back to a prompt. On the other hand, if you picked up the jar but simply failed to use it, you'd die as normal.

End spoiler. (Does this place have spoiler tags?)

I'd be interested to see if that one triggers a crash to desktop in ScummVM too. For what it's worth, I suspect that the DOS version was released after the Amiga version or is at least a newer code revision, so that should be in the Amiga version to. And to be fair, it's a pretty obscure glitch...

But with the graveyard as simple to beat as it stands, as soon as I get this pyramid done I'll be able to confirm the Amiga version as completable.

And another thing that definitely isn't original to either version of the game, and I've tested to ensure - click and drag collection of items doesn't trigger properly in ScummVM. You have to hold the mouse button down for about a second before ScummVM notices, and then you can release the mouse button to complete the action. This is extremely annoying in (spoiler) the section of the mine where you have to unplug the generator's drain to get its fuel, and fill up your items with it. It's fiddly enough as is, mistakes taking a second away and costing fuel are pushing it. (end spoiler) but you can overlook it I suppose, except on ports to touchscreen devices like Android phones where it's unbearable. Could someone with a sourceforge account mark that as a bug or something? I'm REALLY supposed to be doing my dissertation so that's my excuse, haha.

See you all!

Longcat · Post by **Longcat** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 6:09 pm

That's great. Wazworks needs a reliable playtester and the team are gearing up for a new release.

vinehair · Post by **vinehair** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 6:58 pm

Well that didn't take long to find a hard-to-replicate bug. Damn.

In the pyramid at least (don't know if it happens elsewhere,) after a certain amount of playtime, if you're struck by an enemy the sound effect is corrupted and seems to be going through memory because every now and again you could hear other samples being played in between garbage. I thought I had it repeatable, because I saved just before a battle and every time I was hit, it was corrupted in the same way, even after multiple reloads. That is, until I rebooted ScummVM, and everything was fine after that. Very annoying.

It seems to be associated with the damage sound effect more than anything because it happened with two types of enemy, the spear wielding man and the dagger wielding man.

LordHoto · Post by **LordHoto** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 8:26 pm

You might want to check out forum rule 3a. ;-)

vinehair · Post by **vinehair** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 9:01 pm

LordHoto wrote:You might want to check out forum rule 3a.

Oops.

I'll put these in later when I have a little more free time.

Kirben · Post by **Kirben** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 1:44 am

The random crashes in 'Jack the Ripper' scene, are specific to the PC version and currently worked around under ScummVM.

If you find any other re-producible crashes, please report them, even if they occurred in the original game. As I might be able to work around bugs, that occurred in the original games too.

The random corrupt sound data should be fixed now, use the next daily snapshot of ScummVM SVN.

PelleBert · Post by **PelleBert** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 12:57 pm

Without really knowing anything about the Accolade MIDI format i inserted a basic check in the code which seems to remove all crashes. There seems to be some others problems though which makes the music sound wierd in some rooms. My guess is that the instrument selection is messed up...

Kirben · Post by **Kirben** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 1:51 pm

PelleBert wrote:Without really knowing anything about the Accolade MIDI format i inserted a basic check in the code which seems to remove all crashes. There seems to be some others problems though which makes the music sound wierd in some rooms. My guess is that the instrument selection is messed up...

Patches are welcome, non-perfect music without crashes, is still better than no music at all.

The current music code, was mainly based off the music file included with Simon the Sorcerer 1 (DOS Floppy demo).

Kirben · Post by **Kirben** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 5:12 am

Anyone interested in playing through the Waxworks again? we could still use feedback on whether the game can be completed without bugs.

The PC version should be completable, since the save game issue was resolved, and progress is saved correctly.

mrugiero · Post by **mrugiero** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 9:32 pm

It might be a little of topic, but is this game freeware? I just went to wikipedia to read what this game was about, and spanish wikipedia has a link for downloading the whole game.
Please tell me so I know if I must delete the link on the article or else, if it is in fact freeware, I'll download it.

EDIT: I'm asking because the link is not to an official page, which looks suspicious.

Kirben · Post by **Kirben** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:36 pm

mrugiero wrote:It might be a little of topic, but is this game freeware? I just went to wikipedia to read what this game was about, and spanish wikipedia has a link for downloading the whole game.
Please tell me so I know if I must delete the link on the article or else, if it is in fact freeware, I'll download it.

EDIT: I'm asking because the link is not to an official page, which looks suspicious.

No, Waxworks isn't freeware, and can be purchased from Good Old Games

mrugiero · Post by **mrugiero** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 3:26 am

Kirben wrote:
mrugiero wrote:It might be a little of topic, but is this game freeware? I just went to wikipedia to read what this game was about, and spanish wikipedia has a link for downloading the whole game.
Please tell me so I know if I must delete the link on the article or else, if it is in fact freeware, I'll download it.

EDIT: I'm asking because the link is not to an official page, which looks suspicious.
No, Waxworks isn't freeware, and can be purchased from Good Old Games

OK, I'll remove the link from wikipedia then.

Admiral Barrett · Post by **Admiral Barrett** » Fri Apr 26, 2013 4:51 pm

I am uncertain what the rules are for necroposting, but I did not want to start a new thread where one exists.

I have played Waxworks in SCUMMVM and I have confirmed that the game is not completable. The individual stages can be cleared. However, only the most recently completed stage is rendered as "cleared" for the sake of game progress. When completing a subsequent stage, the first stage completed is "reset" as if it was never played. Another issue is that the cursor refresh rate seems slow or off in full screen mode. The cursor refresh is fine in windowed mode and the issue exists in full screen only. Because of the inability for completed stages to remain cleared, the compatibility should be reduced to 25% from 50% as there are four stages to clear before the final conflict.

fuzzie · Post by **fuzzie** » Fri Apr 26, 2013 5:38 pm

Admiral Barrett wrote:Because of the inability for completed stages to remain cleared, the compatibility should be reduced to 25% from 50% as there are four stages to clear before the final conflict.

The compatibility percentage indicates how close it is to working well, not how much of the game you can play. At some point we'll replace the percentages with colour codes or something.

Please file bug reports if you can (and mention which version you're playing..), if you've tested this using our daily builds.

Admiral Barrett · Post by **Admiral Barrett** » Fri Apr 26, 2013 9:00 pm

I'll do that.