Parser Support for VGA SCI Games

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

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OmerMor
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Parser Support for VGA SCI Games

Post by OmerMor »

Hi,
long ago, in the mega-tokyo board, some friends of mine managed to activate a built-in parser that Sierra forgot to remove from the 1990 XMAS card demo.
This is the only known SCI game that is both in VGA and has a parser.
In order to activate the parser, 4 files had to be added:
  • SCRIPT.000
    VOCAB.900
    VOCAB.901
    VOCAB.902
I packed the demo with the needed files for your pleasure:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5j-_Z ... sp=sharing

The thread about this can be found here (w/pictures):
http://sciprogramming.com/community/ind ... c=27.msg46

By the way:
ScummVM is playing this demo fine, but when you use the parser to write anything at all, the game crashes. Of course it's not a big deal - but it would be nice if this could be supported in the future. Obviously, I'm not filing a bug report.

-- Omer Mor.
Last edited by OmerMor on Sun Nov 15, 2015 9:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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md5
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Post by md5 »

Interesting. I've enabled the parser for the demo, though I'm unsure if it's actually supposed to understand the input you're giving it :)
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MusicallyInspired
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Post by MusicallyInspired »

No, nothing is understood by the parser since all the logic was taken away and only the simple parser window capability left in the interpreter.. I think Omer just wants to makes sure ScummVM is emulating the SCI engine in every way that the DOS version runs. For completeness sake?
OmerMor
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Post by OmerMor »

MusicallyInspired is right of course.
The demo always responds with "You've left me respondless." whereas ScummVM responds with a *CRASH* :-)
There is no parser-related logic in demo, but I still find it cool that it works at all.
I'm kinda sorry that they stopped making parser games after the move to VGA. I learned a lot of English from those games (my native tongue is Hebrew).
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Raziel
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Post by Raziel »

OmerMor wrote:MusicallyInspired is right of course.
The demo always responds with "You've left me respondless." whereas ScummVM responds with a *CRASH* :-)
There is no parser-related logic in demo, but I still find it cool that it works at all.
I'm kinda sorry that they stopped making parser games after the move to VGA. I learned a lot of English from those games (my native tongue is Hebrew).
I second that wholeheartedly

German being my native tongue and unfortunately left in and after scool without possibilities to speak and further learn english, these games gave me the chance enhance and not forget

Long live Sierra's adventure games :-)
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sanguinehearts
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Post by sanguinehearts »

Had a go with this earlier.
Very interesting :)

ScummVM seems to crash when parser input is a digit (0-9)
not sure if that is intended.
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