PC98 SCI Games

[OmerMor]

I recently bought 3 PC98 games, and I have some questions regarding them:

1. Quest for Glory 1: ScummVM says it is 8-color. Are the PIC resources contain only 8 colors? is it a different format? So far I know of 16,32 and 256 color PIC formats.

2. SJIS.FNT: In QfG1 & PQ2 this file is required by ScummVM. How can I obtain/create it?

3. Space Quest 4: In the real PC98 I can choose between 8 colors and 16 colors. Is this supported in ScummVM? So far I only managed to get 16 colors. Are there 2 sets of PIC resources or does the game dither the 16 color images to 8 colors?

[md5]

1. Quest for Glory 1: ScummVM says it is 8-color. Are the PIC resources contain only 8 colors? is it a different format? So far I know of 16,32 and 256 color PIC formats.

If it's 8 color, yes, the PIC resources and the game scripts will only contain 8 colors, but the actual palette in the resource files will be 16 colors, from which only 8 will be used, afaik

2. SJIS.FNT: In QfG1 & PQ2 this file is required by ScummVM. How can I obtain/create it?

There's the "create_sjisfnt" tool from the ScummVM tools, but I'm unsure of how it's used. LordHoto wrote that afaik

3. Space Quest 4: In the real PC98 I can choose between 8 colors and 16 colors. Is this supported in ScummVM? So far I only managed to get 16 colors. Are there 2 sets of PIC resources or does the game dither the 16 color images to 8 colors?

It's not supported, no. The least number of colors we support are 16 (why would you want to use 8 colors anyway, apart from the sentimental value, or to quickly compare the graphics?)

[OmerMor]

2. SJIS.FNT: In QfG1 & PQ2 this file is required by ScummVM. How can I obtain/create it?

There's the "create_sjisfnt" tool from the ScummVM tools, but I'm unsure of how it's used. LordHoto wrote that afaik

The tool is not included in the win32 tools package. I'm currently looking into compiling it myself but I'd appreciate any help with this.

3. Space Quest 4: In the real PC98 I can choose between 8 colors and 16 colors. Is this supported in ScummVM? So far I only managed to get 16 colors. Are there 2 sets of PIC resources or does the game dither the 16 color images to 8 colors?

It's not supported, no. The least number of colors we support are 16 (why would you want to use 8 colors anyway, apart from the sentimental value, or to quickly compare the graphics?)

Do you know if the game contains 2 sets of picture resources?
The reason I want to use 8 colors is strictly educational. As a collector of Sierra games I'm interested in all the various rare formats that were available. I am able to see the 8-colors version with a PC98 emulator, so ScummVM support is nice to have, but I can mange without.

[m_kiewitz]

Do you know if the game contains 2 sets of picture resources?
The reason I want to use 8 colors is strictly educational. As a collector of Sierra games I'm interested in all the various rare formats that were available. I am able to see the 8-colors version with a PC98 emulator, so ScummVM support is nice to have, but I can mange without.

For QfG1 PC98 there are 2 versions available. One is 8-color. The other one is 16-color. The game is using the fixed EGA palette, so just the views and pictures are 8-colors only.

SQ4 PC98 has 16-color resources, but also has 8-color drivers included.

[OmerMor]

Thanks for the info! It means I need to track down a 16-color version of QfG1 now.
Does PQ2 also come in 2 flavors?
Is the format of the 8-color views and pictures different from the format of 16-colors ones? Or is the same format the just utilizes less colors?

[m_kiewitz]

Does PQ2 also come in 2 flavors?

doesn't seem to be that way.

Is the format of the 8-color views and pictures different from the format of 16-colors ones? Or is the same format the just utilizes less colors?

it's the same format.

[LordHoto]

2. SJIS.FNT: In QfG1 & PQ2 this file is required by ScummVM. How can I obtain/create it?

I am not sure, but I thought it was included in this http://scummvm.sourceforge.net/download ... -win32.exe i.e.the daily snapshot tools build. But in case it isn't all you can do is to compile it yourself (it should only require iconv and FreeType2).

Apart you need some TFT font which features Japanese characters. kochi-mincho and sazanami-mincho are the ones I tried and which should work fine.

[OmerMor]

OK - those PC98 games are so cool!
Here's what I learned so far:
The SCI0 games (QfG1 & PQ2) both have 2 display modes: 640x400x8 colors & 640x400x16 colors. The 8-colors mode is a dithered version of the 16-colors mode that use the high resolution for dithering (like the EGA640.DRV driver does for 256-color games). In the 16 colors mode the high resolution is used just for the Japanese text. The resources use 16 colors in 320x200 resolution.
(My version of) PQ2 came with a driver only for the 8-colors. I used the 16-colors driver from QfG1 with PQ2 and it works.
Here are some pictures:

16 Colors

8 Colors (Dithered)



Now for the really fun part:
PQ2 has slightly different views than the english version: They've drawn the faces in Anime style (like the japanese Zak Mackracken).
Here is an example:

English version

Japanese version

Cool, eh?

[eriktorbjorn]

Japanese version

Cool, eh?

Is it just me, or does she look desperate to get away from him?

[OmerMor]

Now that you mention it...

[m_kiewitz]

Japanese version

Cool, eh?

I had already uploaded the start of the game to youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHJbeTlARA4

bains got blue hair

[OmerMor]

Yeah.. those Japanese artists draw the weirdest hair styles

[MusicallyInspired]

Wow that's interesting...and creepy.

[KuroShiro]

Oh Japan, you cooky country.

Really though, as strange as it may seem to people who have not spent much time in Japan, there is no way it would sell as well with the "Western" graphics.

[OmerMor]

Well - I went over the other Japanese games I own (KQ5,SQ4,QfG1) and saw no such "facial treatment".
Any idea why treat PQ2 and leave the rest?