Revolution apocrypha: Amiga port of King's Quest VI

Pseudo_Intellectual · Post by **Pseudo_Intellectual** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 5:35 pm

A rumour had it that this conversion wasn't made using Sierra's SCI, which put in mind the thought that they might have employed their in-house Virtual Theatre system... which in turn might make it eligible for inclusion under SCUMMVM since it's been having such great advances with their other contemporary games (and hence much of the groundwork for its inclusion might already have been laid).

(While I was at it I took a look at their "Gold and Glory: the Road to El Dorado", but it looks like it follows the 3D path of their "In Cold Blood", which has already been explicitly excluded.)

joostp · Post by **joostp** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:58 pm

Yes, it uses "Virtual Theatre" and no, it's not straightforward to support this game because of that.

The engine used is similar to Amiga BASS (which isn't supported by ScummVM).

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:39 am

So you are saying that another company was using Sierra's IP, porting it to Amiga with a non-Sierra engine when Sierra already had an Amiga port of their SCI engine? If this is legitimate and legal, I would like to see some proof.

Ceri Cat · Post by **Ceri Cat** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 7:16 am

Which SCI engine Collector? Every single SCI game despite using what seems to be a common engine is actually quite different as every SCI game seems to have rebuilt it with different features, it's why projects like FreeSCI are so slow to progress.

Oh and here you go.
http://amigareviews.classicgaming.games ... ngsqu6.htm

Runs on: A500, A600, A1200
Publisher: Sierra
Authors: Roberta Williams (original design), Revolution (conversion)
Price: £35
Release: Out now

Source Amiga Power magazine September 1994

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:41 pm

Oh, I am well aware that Sierra heavily modified the engine for each game, so much so that they used to store the engine source with the game source. You are telling me nothing new. I see from this one page that you linked that it says that Revolution did the conversion, but nothing about using a completely different engine.

paul0272 · Post by **paul0272** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:32 pm

I'm sure that Sierra themselves must have commissioned Revolution to do the conversion. There's no question that Revolution simply took it upon themselves to convert another company's game.

The SCI engine was ported to the Amiga, of course, but it seemed like a poor port to me. While the early Amiga SCI games were almost identical to the DOS versions, the later, more-demanding ones (eg King's Quest 5, Larry 5, Space Quest IV) were so slow as to be almost unplayable.

I guess Sierra realised that Amiga SCI wouldn't cut it for KQ6.

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:36 am

SCI was less portable than AGI and Amiga was just an after thought for Sierra. Their pallet conversions to Amiga left a lot to be desired, too. I would still be interested in more info about what Revolution did.

Ceri Cat · Post by **Ceri Cat** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:08 am

I'm still trying to find out details myself. Sierra didn't credit Revolution on the box, Revolution don't talk about it, and third party info is hard to find. For a start the SCI port was lousy, to the point Sierra said they wouldn't make any more games that'd run on the Amiga as it "wasn't a real computer", and I have trouble believing KQVI for the Amiga was SCI, it's definitely got a more Virtual Theatre styled interface to begin with and had bugs completely unrelated to the SCI version. It also doesn't appear to respond to any of the SCI command keys, though I'm not sure they got included in the other ports either.

And yes the palette conversion was lousy all right, even though it was converting to 32 colours you'd think it could have been handled better possibly. I don't know anymore, my memories and a few old screen caps show the Amiga being a lot more vibrant visually than some games suggest.

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:45 am

Ceri Cat, joostp already stated that it used Virtual Theater. This is a fact well known to the ScummVM team.

Ceri Cat · Post by **Ceri Cat** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:44 am

fin I believe you. It's Collector who doubts.

OmerMor · Post by **OmerMor** » Mon May 30, 2011 5:08 pm

Now that SCI (even for Amiga) is supported, would it help adding support to the non-SCI Amiga KQ6?
Or is it so different from both Amiga SCI & DOS Virtual Theater that it's not worth it?

md5 · Post by **md5** » Mon May 30, 2011 7:22 pm

OmerMor wrote:Now that SCI (even for Amiga) is supported, would it help adding support to the non-SCI Amiga KQ6?
Or is it so different from both Amiga SCI & DOS Virtual Theater that it's not worth it?

As mentioned. the game isn't using the SCI engine, but a Virtual Theater engine variant. Basically, it requires a lot of time to implement, and since the PC versions (DOS & Windows) are supported, I personally don't see a reason to reimplement a whole new and completely different engine just for a different game variant...

clone2727 · Post by **clone2727** » Mon May 30, 2011 7:44 pm

md5 wrote:As mentioned. the game isn't using the SCI engine, but a Virtual Theater engine variant. Basically, it requires a lot of time to implement, and since the PC versions (DOS & Windows) are supported, I personally don't see a reason to reimplement a whole new and completely different engine just for a different game variant...

For fun? For completeness? For knowledge? For people who only own KQ6 Amiga? The fact that KQ6 Amiga is free on Back to the Roots?

And who's to say we wouldn't be able to get the source code?

md5 · Post by **md5** » Mon May 30, 2011 7:55 pm

True, true, Revolution has provided the source code for other titles, too

OmerMor · Post by **OmerMor** » Tue May 31, 2011 2:50 pm

For me - completeness does it. I love being able to see the game in all it's (major) variants - esp. when the graphics are different (32 colors).
But since I'm not a dev I can only hope.