Talk:SCUMM

Update

There, hope this is better for all the SCUMM games. One thing that's definitely missing is all the in-jokes and references within the SCUMM games (there's *lots*) - I just don't know about / remember them all. Anyone who can think of any, please, add them. The only ones i've included are the MM / Zak chainsaw / fuel thing, and a few references between the MI games on the MI page. AW

Monkey Island Pun

In the Monkey Island game series, a big pun pointing to the system is the SCUMM Bar, a little place of action on Melee Island. ^_^

Version numbers, technicalities

Technically, Monkey Island VGA floppy and Loom CD are SCUMM v5 (as indicated by version strings in the executables). In reality, however, they are far closer to SCUMM v4, the same version used by Monkey Island EGA floppy (using DISK##.LEC files rather than GAMENAME.000/GAMENAME.001 files).

Also, some research has revealed that the NES version of Maniac Mansion uses a SCUMM version between v1 and v2 (in most cases, it is closer to v2).--Quietust 23:40, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Further research has revealed that the original C64 version of Maniac Mansion is very different from the classic PC version, using a script bytecode incompatible with standard SCUMM v1 (and very closely tied to the game itself, having numerous text strings hardcoded into the engine itself). The C64 version of Zak McKracken, however, uses the same SCUMM v1 used in the classic PC version. --Quietust 02:11, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Ports

The article says SCUMM has been ported for the DS. For what games? --Some guy 01:57, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Short answer: none. Long answer: Somebody was overzealous when they expanded the list of native SCUMM platforms and included the platforms ScummVM was ported to. --Quietust 02:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

This happened again by user Cassioli. SCUMM was never ported to SymbianOS, latter just didn't exist at that time. Moreover, even EscummVM is already gone and was merged into main ScummVM tree, i.e. the port became official. Current list of ports is complete to best of our knowledge, and we know even about game prototypes. --Sevua 18:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Humongous Entertainment Versions

I think we should include the HE game versions as well. Does anyone else agree? Clone2727 00:07, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

In gaming culture

I'd like to see more expansion on the subject of references to the SCUMM engine in modern culture, as it has become part of the standard lexicon and remained so long after the software itself has become essentially obsolete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Deer (talk • contribs) 13:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Prose tag, images

Both the {{prose}} tag and several images were just removed from this article with no rationale. I can't see why that is. The version history could easily be converted to prose (and should be) and the article is short of images in my opinion, not too full of them. Chris Cunningham (talk) 09:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If you want to turn the list into prose, go ahead. A list, to me, makes more sense though. The images I removed because they fail the Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. Garion96 (talk) 10:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. Much better. Chris Cunningham (talk) 11:36, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Loom.png

Image:Loom.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. — Κaiba 18:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

This talk page needs a clean up

There's a lot of old stuff here, not relevant to the article anymore, but I don't know what the Wikipedia Policy is regarding the cleansing of old messages. Zorbid (talk) 16:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Old talk is usually archived, not deleted. It may be useful to editors who want to examine the rationale for old changes while looking through the article's history. If the page gets long enough that old discussion is interfering with it, I'll archive it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the trivia tag in the in-jokes section...

I removed it, and expanded/reworded the section (as 81.240.208.234).

Puns were a signature of the adventure game developers at LucasFilm Games/ LucasArts at that time. They were to my knowledge among the pioneers of this kind of humor in computer games. It had AFAIK an impact on gaming culture, and it deserves a mention.Zorbid (talk) 16:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

the hardcore years of early games

coding a game was so hardcore back then that devising a scripting method to ease development was considered a scam. can we see if sources support this for this naming? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.70.107.247 (talk) 01:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Actual SCUMM code

Does anybody have an actual piece of SCUMM code? Would make an interesting addition to the article to actually see how it looked like. -- Grumbel (talk) 22:56, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Found some actually SCUMM code (not sure if all SCUMM versions followed that syntax or if later ones did significant changes):

WALK ZAK TO-OBJECT CREDIT-CARD
WAIT-FOR-ACTOR ZAK
PCIK-UP-OBJECT CREDIT-CARD
SAY-LINE ZAK "Wow, a credit card with two headed squirrel on the front!"
WAIT-FOR-SENTENCE
DO-ANIMATION ZAK FACE-TOWARDS CAMERA

Source: David Fox Talk at Assembly 2004, Video at minute 46 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grumbel (talk • contribs) 00:20, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Removal of versions section

I think the version number the game executables put out were misunderstood as the version of SCUMM, when in fact this is the "Interpreter Version" (the program that interprets the option flags the game is started with, e.g. sound driver). This is confirmed by the version switch from 6.5.0 (SNMIDEMO.EXE/SNMDEMO.EXE/SDEMO.EXE) to 7.0.0 (SAMDEMO.EXE) in the Sam & Max demos: the flag interpreter was fundamentally changed, though the demos itself still use the same SCUMM version. Hence, I removed the version section and comments from the article. Prime Blue (talk) 20:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• That is interesting point of view, indeed, but the version information is based on actual analysis of the interpreter executables, and SCUMM version naturally matched SPUTM version. Please revert the section. Sevua (talk) 08:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide a reliable source, like a developer interview or something similar? Without references, this section is original research and will be hard to keep around anyway, disregarding the alleged contradiction. Prime Blue (talk) 18:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Heh, OK. This never was and I don't believe will ever be published by LucasArts. And of course, complete SPUTM reimplementation, ScummVM is not a reliable source at all despite of supporting every LucasArts adventures and most of Humongous Entertainment games based on the engine. Sevua (talk) 18:32, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The most reliable source as of today on SCUMM engine is ScummVM Team and their websites. They reimplemented full range of SCUMM engine and thus do know all about their internals. The information in question is published both on their Wiki, and is available in source code of ScummVM. What else do you think is needed in order to prove that that list reflects reality? --Sevua (talk) 17:53, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, self-published sources such as other wikis are not considered reliable sources. The way it is now, the article is a total mess anyway (half of it is tools/ScummVM/trivia) and hardly meets the notability criteria. Finding some actual reliable sources like developer interviews (if they exist) to back some of the present statements up would be a first step to improve it. Otherwise, the verifiable statements would be better off merged to LucasArts adventure games. Prime Blue (talk) 20:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, let's go a bit further. ScummVM itself is a self-published site. Perhaps all of this is a hoax? Where is the borderline? Back on the topic. ScummVM Wiki is not open to the public, and only members of the team or trusted users can publish there. Does the fact that the program runs all those games flawlessly not prove that ScummVM's understanding of the engine internals is all correct? Does the fact that Atari (IP owner of some SCUMM-based games) went and reused ScummVM in their product not prove that their implementation matches the original? Do terms reverse engineering and game engine recreation tell anything to you? --Sevua (talk) 21:25, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Not even taking into consideration that other users can get an account, this wiki fails to meet the criteria established in WP:SPS.

Looking further into it, the page states it was based on this and this, before a user named Quietust added the "engine version" column, which, according to him, are the "'logical' version numbers on this page (i.e. the ones that ScummVM actually uses internally)". ScummVM may group the games as such, but that does not tell us anything about the original development plan of the engine. Pertaining to SCUMM itself, these version numbers remain original research. Prime Blue (talk) 14:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

History

Interesting article about SCUMM. It details how SCUMM was originally developed on Sun machines, and later on PC (page 4 testing against NT) and how this affected development. -- 109.76.13.212 (talk) 00:26, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

ScummVM Versions History

Can someone add a version history of releases, including the most current up-to-date release please? Other projects such as Freeciv have such a nice overview on the top right side, scummvm seems to be missing one, on its wikipedia page. Perhaps one could even use a template for all open-source games, since I think that this is a recurring theme (if you don't know what I mean, just have a look at freeciv wikipedia page, then you understand). 2A02:8388:1600:A880:BE5F:F4FF:FECD:7CB2 (talk) 03:25, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

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Platforms - Macintosh

The final release of SCUMM was 1998. The initial release of OS X was in 2001. Therefore, linking to the OS X page as a supported platform instead of Classic Mac OS is misleading at best. I'm sure it would have run under early OS X versions via Classic Environment, but it was never built for OS X.

I would edit this myself but that section is locked. 2600:6C5E:2100:1A02:F47B:D102:137:4D63 (talk) 14:42, 4 November 2023 (UTC)