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scumm games

Started by cpc4eva, 05:58, 04 January 15

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cpc4eva

just found a link and been reading up on the possible release of the secret of monkey island on the msx.

The Secret of Monkey Island in development for MSX2 | MSX Resource Center

looks pretty cool.

i went to the wiki and i see that scumm based games also know as Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion (SCUMM) is a scripting language developed at LucasArts (known at the time as Lucasfilm Games) to ease development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion, but since developed to be used as an engine for several more LucasArts adventure games.

It falls somewhere between a game engine and a programming language, allowing designers to create locations, items and dialogue sequences without writing code in the language in which the game source code ends up. This also allowed the game's script and data files to be re-used across various platforms. SCUMM is also a host for embedded game engines such as iMUSE (standing for Interactive MUsic Streaming Engine), INSANE (standing for INteractive Streaming ANimation Engine), CYST (in-game animation engine), FLEM (places and names object inside a room), and MMUCUS. SCUMM has been released on the following platforms: 3DO, Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, CDTV, Commodore 64, Fujitsu Towns & Marty, Apple Macintosh, Nintendo Entertainment System, DOS, Microsoft Windows, Sega Mega-CD and TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine.

no mention of it ever being done on a cpc......

anyone know of any such cpc similar games to this scumm platform ?




dcdrac

I am pretty sure a scumm emulator cme out a few years ago certain I downloaded it, mainly to replay The Dig and Full Throttle

remax

#2
Quote from: dcdrac on 11:54, 04 January 15
I am pretty sure a scumm emulator cme out a few years ago certain I downloaded it, mainly to replay The Dig and Full Throttle

ScummVM :: Home

Quote from: cpc4eva on 05:58, 04 January 15
just found a link and been reading up on the possible release of the secret of monkey island on the msx.

The Secret of Monkey Island in development for MSX2 | MSX Resource Center

looks pretty cool.

i went to the wiki and i see that scumm based games also know as Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion (SCUMM) is a scripting language developed at LucasArts (known at the time as Lucasfilm Games) to ease development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion, but since developed to be used as an engine for several more LucasArts adventure games.

It falls somewhere between a game engine and a programming language, allowing designers to create locations, items and dialogue sequences without writing code in the language in which the game source code ends up. This also allowed the game's script and data files to be re-used across various platforms. SCUMM is also a host for embedded game engines such as iMUSE (standing for Interactive MUsic Streaming Engine), INSANE (standing for INteractive Streaming ANimation Engine), CYST (in-game animation engine), FLEM (places and names object inside a room), and MMUCUS. SCUMM has been released on the following platforms: 3DO, Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, CDTV, Commodore 64, Fujitsu Towns & Marty, Apple Macintosh, Nintendo Entertainment System, DOS, Microsoft Windows, Sega Mega-CD and TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine.

no mention of it ever being done on a cpc......

anyone know of any such cpc similar games to this scumm platform ?

There had been an attempt to port Monkey Island on CPC but it's on hold at the moment

http://cpcrulez.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4276
Brain Radioactivity

MacDeath

#3
So SCUMM engine was never done for any Z80 based machine ?

Concerning the CPCrulez thread : we spent a whole summer dreaming about it to come true, doing lot's of Mockups and usual stuffs... but as usual, some guys wanted to get Monkey Island 2 on VGA PC faithfully converted into CPC instead of just having a basic earlier SCUMM engine version working, to begin with (like zak mackraken or older stuff like this, as on c64).
Monkey Island 2 used one of the latest SCUMM and was designed to run on big 486 VGA computers with HDD and shittons of RAM... sort of...
Even monkey island 1 used a quite advanced version of the SCUMM engine.

Megachur anyway managed to start job on getting the monkey island version to launch a bit, but every thing was still to be done and the X-MEM card wasn't broadly available at the moment.
I mean, Monkey island was designed to run on 16 bit machines with 512K of RAM... to me, you'll have to indeed start with earlier SCUMM games like Maniac Mansion, which happenedd to have 8bit versions... then mod the engine so it can use extra graphics and extra RAM for a more cinematic experience.


As we say in French : on ne met pas la charrue avant les boeufs.


So yeap, WIP... or more specifically WIPorwared...  :laugh:

andycadley

I've seen plenty of "Monkey Island ports" for various 8-bit machines over the years and none have ever amounted to anything other than some screen conversions. Doing it "for real" is so much more complicated than that and probably more than 8-bit machines are really capable of. Targetting something like Maniac Mansion, which is a lot simpler and did actually exist on the C64, would definitely be the way to go for an 8-bit SCUMM-like system.

MacDeath

#5
How do they deal with the fact MSX is 256x192 sized while all Monkey island are 320x200 ? they won't have enough pixels !!!
:laugh:

BTW they weren't trying to port the scumm to MSX but do the game from scratch, but then can't do monkey island because of copywright infringement as Lucas product is now property of Disney and Monkey island is not Abandonware at all (re-iossued very often in new versions)

so no "Monkey Island" on MSX2...

And yeah... jsut get a freaking older SCUMM working on CPC and we may then twist the datas to have most SCUMM games to run on it.

Indiana Jones 3, LOOM, ZakMacKraken Mansion and even many many original games... but I always find stupid that some would aim at day of the tentacle first... lol


Monkey island asked for Hi specs compaired to CPC/8bit.

Atari ST (512K RAM) and was painfully always ask for disk swaps (or even for disk that wouldn't exist... lol)
On Ms-Dos PC it would need 640K of RAM and would also need an HDD to run properly !!! And actually 8mhz was somewhat needed as minimum config.
and so on...


But yeah, now X-Mem is available, could help quite a lot.
Still I would have aimed at Loom or ZakMacMansion as first released SCUMM game...Monkey island is quite heavy on cinematics and sprites variants.


Look on an XT PC @4.77 mhz (so not too far from a Z80...)


www.youtube.com/watch?v=LofzYGATK9o

at the end or video you can see the painfully process of scrolling the SCUMM bar... ouch...

Sykobee (Briggsy)

Definitely start with the earlier SCUMM games, the ones that ran on the C64 would be a good start. I suspect the SCUMM engine for those early games is a lot simpler too.


Remember SCUMM was really about porting the game logic between platforms - the graphics and audio were mostly redone at some level to be platform specific/optimised. I don't even think the early games scrolled or had extensive animation (and the graphics were pretty poor too), just routines to load screens (and per screen data, and logic) from disk, handle an inventory and simple verb/object selection system, handle character movement on the screen, and manage player-npc conversations and movements.


Maybe start with Maniac Mansion, the MM in SCUMM.

Prodatron

The CPU shown in the video runs at 8MHz btw. (he mentioned it at the end). Oh, and isn't a 8088 running at 4,77MHz slower than a Z80? AFAIK a 4MHz Z80 is compareable to a 8MHz 8088, as these need more cycles per instructions, or I am wrong?

But still interesting, that it runs on this machine in a (nearly) playable way. I am pretty sure, that this isn't optimized at all.
On the CPC it can look much more better, even if you try to port and convert it as close to the original as possible. Even software scrolling would be much faster than in this video :D And these few animations are really a joke for the CPC!

So at the end it's only a question of the amount of data. A disc version of Monkey Island would require a lot of disc swapping. But with X-MASS + X-MEM I don't see any issues from the technical side.

GRAPHICAL Z80 MULTITASKING OPERATING SYSTEM

Joseman

#8
Quote from: Prodatron on 10:25, 06 January 15
with X-MASS + X-MEM I don't see any issues from the technical side.

i'm pretty sure that even monkey island 2 or indiana jones and the fate of atlantis (very intensive scumm games) aren't a problem with this 2 piece of hardware, there isn't any animation, there isn't any graphic or even sound that the CPC can't replicate of this 2 games (and all the previous scumm games), like prodatron said, there's a lot of data to deal, but the technical side of the scumm games i think it's pretty basic, or am i wrong?

the problem with the youtube video, is that scumm is not optimized for this kind of machine, but still very playable, if you optimize 100% the code on the CPC sure will run better than on that video.

Gryzor

Watching the video, I actually went and grabbed a snack while it was booting into DOS :D

TFM

Quote from: Prodatron on 10:25, 06 January 15
On the CPC it can look much more better, even if you try to port and convert it as close to the original as possible. Even software scrolling would be much faster than in this video :D And these few animations are really a joke for the CPC!
So at the end it's only a question of the amount of data. A disc version of Monkey Island would require a lot of disc swapping. But with X-MASS + X-MEM I don't see any issues from the technical side.


Sounds like a nice project for Symbos.  :)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

MacDeath

#11
Or futureOS ? ;D


@Prodatron
he says it runs @8mhz but in the video text at youtube it is written 4.77mhz...

QuoteSpecs:
AMD 8088 4.77MHz CPU
512k RAM (256k onboard, 256k on 8bit ISA Card)
360k 5.25" IBM Floppy Drive
31mb Seagate MFM Hard Drive
Hercules Monochrome Graphics.
MS-DOS 6.0

it is said to be an IBM PC XT 5160.

the 5160 was supposed to run @4,77mhz.
Main difference with 5150 was the HDD supported.

So I guess he simply made a mistake in the video stating this device was 8mhz, unless it is moded.


Basically this "hercule XT" version could run on a PCW with 512K as well...

Prodatron

Well, I thought he modded and overclocked it, when I heard him speaking at the end.
Anyway, yes, all these specs are something which the CPC can outplay without problems  ;D

GRAPHICAL Z80 MULTITASKING OPERATING SYSTEM

MaV

I'm not sure overclocking would help the situation much.

First of all, the 8088 with its 4 byte prefetch queue and 8 bit data bus had catastrophic performance, unlike the 8086 in which the 6 byte prefetch queue and 16 bit data bus worked as intended.

Secondly, a CGA card usually inserted quite a lot of wait states when you addressed the video ram: The CGA wait states « Reenigne blog --> That's 3 - 8 with an average of 5,8 additional clock cycles. I measured my Hercules graphics card back in the day and I vaguely remember it being a bit better than these values, but not by much (people may now realise that the CPC's solution to round the clock cycles of commands to a multiple of four wasn't the worst of ideas). It took quite some time, before graphic cards were sold that sported 0 wait states (sometime in the VGA / 80286 era, IIRC).

Thirdly, a Hercules screen took up almost 31k (720/8 * 348 bytes). That's a whole lot more memory to move than on a CPC.
Lastly, as has been said before, the game wasn't optimised for an PC XT, rather for the AT computers.

PLUS:
- It might very well be that the game uses a kind of CGA emulation for the Hercules graphics screen. CGA emulation for Hercules graphics cards has been done very often back in the days. And there were quite a few stand-alone versions in the wild.
- Optimising for a specific graphics card did not make sense, even back then, as there were a variety of them with differing performance.

Never mind that it moves almost the whole screen ram for the scrolling effect, when the average 8 bit computer had scrolling capability.



BTW: There's a remake of Day of the Tentacle under way, I'm not sure on which engine it is based, but expect a takedown notice if anyone ever releases a port.
Black Mesa Transit Announcement System:
"Work safe, work smart. Your future depends on it."

TFM

In never understood why people moved from CPC to PC anyway.  :P
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Gryzor

Quote from: TFM on 18:30, 07 January 15
In never understood why people moved from CPC to PC anyway.  :P


I blame pr0n.

Joseman

Quote from: TFM on 18:30, 07 January 15
In never understood why people moved from CPC to PC anyway.  :P

porn?  ;D


MacDeath

I guess it was better to buy an Amstrad PC386 VGA in 1990 than a 464PLUS... despite being a bit more expensive.


For me I can't understand how musicians switched from Atari to Mac...
oh wait, Atari suicided by neglecting the Falcon... despite its fanbase and niche specialized yet lucrative market...;


Jaguar Jaguar Jaguar... so rad...

TFM

Quote from: MacDeath on 21:22, 23 February 15
I guess it was better to buy an Amstrad PC386 VGA in 1990 than a 464PLUS... despite being a bit more expensive.

I guess if was better to buy a 6128Plus instead of a PC386 VGA in 1991 [nb](1990 there was neither one of them)[/nb]. And that's what I did, and never regretted :)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

MacDeath

Well, a PC1640 in 1990 was still having nice releases...

But my 286AT in EGA at12mhz was even better...

TFM

Traitor!            [nb]...was a great game on CPC though! Or was it Trantor?  :laugh: [/nb]
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

MacDeath

#21
Sorry this topic derailed again because of me...


a PC1640 with its standard EGA was great in that it could play most classics Scumm games, like indiana Jones 3, Loom, ZakMac thing, and of course Monkey Island.

I guess it is a shame those don't play in 16 colours with the not standard CGAmstrad from the PC1512... I really think Amstrad shoudl have put more effort in promoting their "CGAmstrad" and release it as separate cards... and provide softwares solutions for game maker so to patch any CGA/EGA games could be possible easily to have them in 16 colours on the Pc1512.
Also a shame the 640x200x16 EGA mode (and CGAmstrad) wasn't more used... well, some japanese games or russian games would, and I remember I could run Might and Magic 3 : isles of Terra in such badass 640x200x16 video mode on my standard EGA.

From what I remember : a standard EGA would have terribad scanlines in vertical 200pix modes if using a real EGA display.
Due to having the vertical native 350lines stretchend into 200 lines.
Well, it did on mine.
The "CGAmstrad" from PC1512 was using a CGA like monitor so you had no such heavy scanlines even in 640x200x16.
On real EGA like mine, got to use the 640x350x16 video mode to have smooth colours, was awesome but so rare as the vertica 350lines was actually not "compatible" with most graphics done for 200 line or 400 lines (as on most other computers).
So unless some easily redimensionable things (like windows mode SIM City) most games couldn't really use the true EGA as it needed to redo graphics entirely.

otherwise, the 640x200x16 video mode could really stretch the palette via its fine ditherings that would add real extra colours on a CGA like monitor. Sadly only fixed palette (the full CGA one).

CGA and EGA were really flowed badly. fick IBM for that !!!

Amstrad actually did a nice compromise with the PC1512 but were bitched hard because not truely fully compliant to yet inferior CGA, nor actually compatible with the low vertical rez EGA modes.
WTF ?
(also because of a FAN non issue...but that's another story...)


As I often say and believe : had Amstrad added an AY soundchip into the PC1512 and released/sold the CGAmstrad+AY on a seperate card to put on other machines too, this could have become the new standard of CGA and be massively used, most 1987-1991 CGA-EGA games could have been saved a lot by simply being 640x200x16+AY sound... actually as good as Atari ST in many ways.



So, SCUMM games anyone ?


I think LOOM could definitally be a nice CPC/PLUS game.
It actually has a very simple interface and is completely storytelling oriented.

Would be perfect for X-MASS and X-MEM equipped Amstrads.

Prodatron

QuoteSo, SCUMM games anyone ?


I think LOOM could definitally be a nice CPC/PLUS game.
It actually has a very simple interface and is completely storytelling oriented.

Would be perfect for X-MASS and X-MEM equipped Amstrads.
I totally agree. There is no reason why it shouldn't be possible on a CPC with 512KB ram and an IDE interface. Just have a look at these CGA versions on an 8088/8086, which is even worse hardware.

GRAPHICAL Z80 MULTITASKING OPERATING SYSTEM

MacDeath

#23
Not sure, I did some mockups for Loom in the past, should check where they are...


original EGA :

(changes from Space Ace or Dragon's Lair... lol)

unfinished transfer from EGA :


Retouched same one :

still a lot of remaining lines...

before they all went lazy on EGA, you could find nicely used EGA as per LOOM, Indy3 and Monkey Island (the CGA/EGA version)...

Those games had really impressive ditherings in EGA and well used palette.
main issue is that when you port those into Mode0, the ditherings become lines... so you may need to heavilt redo all this.

Same when you try to port from games like Gods (bitmap brother) the heavy dithering work on ST version renders it quite job intense to redo the dithers in CPC.

long but it pays well in the end.

When the ditherings are not too complicated, jsut used for simple extra colour hues, there is a nice technique as well :



replace dithered zones by extra colours, divide horizontal resolution by 2, then replace extra colours by new regular ditherings, voilà.
ditherings in mode 0.

otherwise, you can also actually get very nice result with ports from VGA/MCGA.

Joseman

All this mockups are pretty pretty good, this shows that the CPC is more than able to handle graphically this games.

But what about with the SCUMM itself?

it's a shame that doesn't exist a z80 port, but there is some ports for 6502 machines. How difficult is to port this 6502 SCUMM to the z80? I refuse to think that is so difficult, i think that the problem is that who knows Z80 asm doesn't know 6502 asm, and viceversa.

Sometimes I think that the 3 big z80 communities (Amstrad, Spectrum, MSX) have to join together to code  the z80 port for SCUMM at last.


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