How to register "The Magnetic Scrolls Collection" games?

[Iggi]

I recently had the opportunity to get my hands on a copy of the European 6x 3,5'' DD floppy DOS version of The Magnetic Scrolls Collection. From what I understand these games should be supported by the magnetic engine, but ScummVM (git master branch with all engines enabled) doesn't detect any games when I select the installation directory in the "Add Game..." dialogue.

The installation directory contains the following files:

Code: Select all

stat -c "%n %s" *
BOOT.RDF 33
BOOT.RSC 4367
CFIVE.RSC 23728
CFOUR.RSC 362496
COLLECT1.BAT 21
COMMON.RDF 100
CONE.RSC 4
CORR.RDF 206
CSIX.RSC 6900
CTHREE.RSC 362496
CTWO.RSC 362496
FFIVE.RSC 64175
FFOUR.RSC 173056
FISH.RDF 173
FONE.RSC 4
FTHREE.RSC 362496
FTWO.RSC 362496
GAME.EXE 341616
GFIVE.RSC 188726
GFOUR.RSC 76800
GONE.RSC 4
GSIX.RSC 8394
GTHREE.RSC 362496
GTWO.RSC 362496
GUILD.RDF 206
ONE 0
PREFS 170
SONE.RSC 4
STHREE.RSC 2094
STWO.RSC 260578

... and when selecting the option to decompress the graphics at the end of the installer the directory will also contain these two additional files:

Code: Select all

USER.RDF 36
USER.RSC 2161263

Now I'm wondering: Are the Magnetic Windows versions of the games supported at all?

[digitall]

Iggi: I think there may be a detection issue on case-sensitive filesystems. Try renaming your datafiles to the lower case versions. Detection is done on the rsc files so you should check if the first 5000 bytes md5sum and filesize matches the values found in:
https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/blob ... bles.h#L44

[digitall]

Hmm... Actually I think that may be covered by the detection code, but I don't think there is a fallback detector here so the exact 5000 byte md5sum and filesize of your version would need to be in the detection table for it to be detected:
https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/blob ... on.cpp#L48

[eriktorbjorn]

so the exact 5000 byte md5sum and filesize of your version would need to be in the detection table for it to be detected

I have the DOS CD version of that collection. The file sizes of the .rsc files appear to be the same (some of the others seem to differ slightly), except I couldn't find any option for decompressing graphics and I didn't see any user.rsc / user.rdf.

So is this what you need?

Code: Select all

$ stat -c "%6s %n" *.rsc
  4367 boot.rsc
 23728 cfive.rsc
362496 cfour.rsc
     4 cone.rsc
  6900 csix.rsc
362496 cthree.rsc
362496 ctwo.rsc
 64175 ffive.rsc
173056 ffour.rsc
     4 fone.rsc
362496 fthree.rsc
362496 ftwo.rsc
188726 gfive.rsc
 76800 gfour.rsc
     4 gone.rsc
  8394 gsix.rsc
362496 gthree.rsc
362496 gtwo.rsc
     4 sone.rsc
  2094 sthree.rsc
260578 stwo.rsc

Code: Select all

$ for file in *.rsc ; do printf "%-12s" $file ; head -c 5000 $file | md5sum ; done
boot.rsc    4d52a7d7e3af6dfb8efe6c5b19ce3e5a  -
cfive.rsc   12d2406699486430e6752aece38a3558  -
cfour.rsc   6a70996823d982f9c2605d02be2b809a  -
cone.rsc    08495cf835f52755e75641c098b90f9d  -
csix.rsc    e8dd4919c024ce5019dc750325c47a03  -
cthree.rsc  43278608b7c161afdef3a3678c4eea9f  -
ctwo.rsc    2d7597840a8dcebbda0218ff65ab7dfa  -
ffive.rsc   6028e99a5b4ede7d11cf07ca47faf9a3  -
ffour.rsc   8c849ccf06a8d4687d91c02db5f52141  -
fone.rsc    1a7839da462f1811c9214170f97c027a  -
fthree.rsc  fc5ffcd9aa428b1c94add4854b0d1437  -
ftwo.rsc    8b0cd64bd795dabaa9712ffbe989216a  -
gfive.rsc   abbde7709d9219b2af1bb75bfd4e07f9  -
gfour.rsc   b5e2e9444f7b0e995e8556ebd906e0ac  -
gone.rsc    bdb1a615b18beeb45a2b2870342aac91  -
gsix.rsc    5cf5ff660ae11f8c1d9710aa955ade02  -
gthree.rsc  587216406d1f1c16b720e384fb20fef4  -
gtwo.rsc    d3840f9259dde7cf669f2ef11d8f49d5  -
sone.rsc    7ad6b7d4680c287882248d0f9e53348c  -
sthree.rsc  ac772841b60ac7fb3cb114721312b0c2  -
stwo.rsc    e80c046e8b2a8f047951075d09508809  -

[dreammaster]

The current magnetic engine in engines/glk/magnetic is based on the re-implemented Magnetic interpreter 2.3. I don't really know too much about it's internal structures, but in theory you could add in the md5's to the detection_tables.h MAGNETIC_GAMES array, and it may also need to be added to GMS_GAME_TABLE if the game starts.

[eriktorbjorn]

The current magnetic engine in engines/glk/magnetic is based on the re-implemented Magnetic interpreter 2.3. I don't really know too much about it's internal structures, but in theory you could add in the md5's to the detection_tables.h MAGNETIC_GAMES array, and it may also need to be added to GMS_GAME_TABLE if the game starts.

I thought the Magnetic interpreter expected the game to be split into one game file, and one graphics file, with optional hints and music files. But that doesn't seem to be what's in the original releases of the games. I always assumed Magnetic didn't know what to do with the original files, but I don't know for sure. Maybe it's just the original data inside a container?

There is another interpreter called dMagnetic, that claims to understand some other formats / disk images. Maybe you can find something of use there? (It's under BSD license.)

[dreammaster]

There is another interpreter called dMagnetic, that claims to understand some other formats / disk images. Maybe you can find something of use there? (It's under BSD license.)

Maybe so. But glk is low on my list of priorities right now, considering my ongoing work with AGS. Perhaps someone else may choose to play around with it in the meantime. If dMagnetic does turn out to have better coverage the current one, we could always look into replacing it in the future.

[eriktorbjorn]

If dMagnetic does turn out to have better coverage the current one, we could always look into replacing it in the future.

I think it's still in development, and since one of the main selling point seems to be that it's running in a terminal window (which, judging by the screenshots, can look surprisingly good, if your terminal window supports Sixel graphics), I doubt he'd want to merge the project into ScummVM. But it can probably be a good source of information about various file formats.

[Roody]

I thought the Magnetic interpreter expected the game to be split into one game file, and one graphics file, with optional hints and music files. But that doesn't seem to be what's in the original releases of the games. I always assumed Magnetic didn't know what to do with the original files, but I don't know for sure. Maybe it's just the original data inside a container?

I don't know if this helps, but this Magnetic Scrolls utility can bundle files into the one-file format interpreters such as Magnetic are looking for. I don't know if it works with the Magnetic Scrolls Collection games.

If anyone has any Magnetic Scrolls questions, I'd suggest contacting the people at Strand Games. They have been re-releasing MS games over the last several years with some rather neat implementations (IMO), and they have been in contact with some of the original MS people and even helped rescue some old source code. I imagine they know everything anyone would think to ask.

[eriktorbjorn]

and they have been in contact with some of the original MS people and even helped rescue some old source code. I imagine they know everything anyone would think to ask.

According to their web page, "Strand Games was started by Hugh Steers - a founding member and core developer of Magnetic Scrolls and Stefan Meier, curator of if-legends.org". The story about the recovery of the source code is on their blog.

Given their affiliation with if-legends.org, which they even provide a link to, I assume they're at least somewhat ok with the games being downloaded or played from there. But the re-releases are very cheap, and the money from them "is only used for covering our running costs like hosting fees, Apple developer fees, and the cost for recovering the original Magnetic Scrolls sources" so I'm still buying those. Even though I'm not completely sold on their new user interface, and at least one of their Linux versions has problems for me.

By the way, Strand games has a Git repository, but I don't know what's old and what's new in it.

[Iggi]

I'm sorry for being horribly late, I forgot to turn on email notifications...

First of all: The Magnetic interpreter indeed only supports the .mag/.gfx files, which - judging from https://msmemorial.if-legends.org/magne ... c_v2_2.txt - seems to be the file format of the Amiga version.
As suspected dMagnetic also supports all the other platforms with their specific file formats, including the .rsc files from the DOS Collection version. Each of those alternate formats will just be converted to .mag/.gfx for execution, so that may be a good starting point for further platform support indeed.

When comparing the game to the original version I noticed that - even though both interpreters support the Magnetic Windows versions of the games - the user interface is the one from the old versions in any case, i.e. the compass, the map and the item list introduced with Magnetic Windows are not supported.

[eriktorbjorn]

When comparing the game to the original version I noticed that - even though both interpreters support the Magnetic Windows versions of the games - the user interface is the one from the old versions in any case, i.e. the compass, the map and the item list introduced with Magnetic Windows are not supported.

While the auto map would be useful, I personally found the actual Magnetic Windows interface pretty horrible to use. Technically impressive though it may be:

magnetic-windows.png (13.94 KiB) Viewed 4923 times

Of course, that screenshot doesn't even try to arrange the windows in any pleasing way. But even if you do find some useful arrangement, in at least some of the games not all graphics have the same dimensions so what looks good in one room may not look so good in another.

[Iggi]

Oh, I totally agree on the interface! Configuring a layout where everything is shown seems to be impossible.
Edit: https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/magn ... creenshots shows some layouts which may actually be usable

However the features of the Magnetic Windows interface seem to make the games considerably easier. For me (as someone who's not very good at text adventures, i.e. I wasn't even able to leave the first screen in the early Space Quest games) this is very welcome: the Items in Room list and the drop-down / right-click selection for verbs were the selling point to buy the collection. Those make the game much more point'n'click-esque.

Judging from the screenshots on https://strandgames.itch.io/the-guild-of-thieves it seems Strand Games reimplemented all those features, though with a modernized user interface. I'll have a closer look at their repository when I find some time - maybe it can also read the old data files...

[eriktorbjorn]

However the features of the Magnetic Windows interface seem to make the games considerably easier. For me (as someone who's not very good at text adventures, i.e. I wasn't even able to leave the first screen in the early Space Quest games) this is very welcome: the Items in Room list and the drop-down / right-click selection for verbs were the selling point to buy the collection. Those make the game much more point'n'click-esque.

Well, yes, but I prefer the way Legend Entertainment did it, e.g. in Eric the Unready: https://www.mobygames.com/game/eric-the ... creenshots

Though to be fair, I used to play those games in "half" mode. I never used those lists of verbs and objects anyway so they were just taking space from the text, so I can't vouch for how useful they were.

[Iggi]

I'm not convinced about the usefulness of the command list any more, either. In Guild of Thieves the verb to get out of the boat in the first scene does not appear in the Verbs list or the boat's context menu at all. It just seems to be the basic / most used commands, but definitely not all necessary or even possible ones...

What I'd be dreaming of is a context sensitive menu listing all options where any custom reaction would happen, but that would probably change the actual gameplay way too much. Using the Legend Entertainment interface for the Magnetic Windows games would be amazing though

I just bought Strand Games' version of Guild of Thieves for comparison by the way. The engine will read the Amiga disk or the .MAG files, but it seems it also needs some additional files - at least it was segfaulting when I just pointed it to the free download version. The interface contains a complete list of commands, however the first letter has to be entered to get the list of all commands starting with that letter. All the other features from the Magnetic Windows (compass, list of items in inventory, list of persons, highlighted interactable objects) are there as expected.