Anyone remember that game... (OS9)

[Pressure]

Hey, when I was a kid I remember playing an adventure/RPG game that had voice dialog and the lead person were a fox standing on its hindlegs.

I think something had vanished and you had to solve that mystery.

I know the desciption is very vague but hopefully someone can remember it.

 

[Carthag]

Inherit The Earth.

ScummVM supports it now

 

[Pressure]

Inherit The Earth.

ScummVM supports it now

Yeah, exactly!

What's ScummVM?

An emulator of sorts I presume.

 

[Carthag]

Better than an emulator, really.

It's a replacement application for a bunch of the classic adventure games. Uses the original data files, so you need a copy of the game (just like if you would if you used an emulator).

But it'll run much better than an emulator.

Check it out: www.scummvm.org

 

[0098386]

Yes it is an emulator and like any other emulator you can play around with lots of options. Really great way to play these old games (I've got ScummDS on my DS Lite with my original Monkey Island and Sam and Max games ).

 

[Carthag]

Emulation is done at the hardware level

ScummVM reads the original data files and knows how they work. It's basically a replacement executable (.exe .elf .app etc). It doesn't care what system the game was originally written for, as the games usually had the same file format across platforms (x86 68k ppc etc).

So, not an emulator

 

[rented mule]

Usually...but in this case the Mac data files are completely different when it comes to audio. And because the audio is different (and perhaps the graphics if you consider other versions such as the Amiga versions), each version of the data file had to be interpreted differently.

But you right in saying that it doesn't matter if you play the PC data file or Amiga data file on the Mac, or the Mac data file on a PC. It all just works because support for them exists in ScummVM.

ScummVM is awesome. It's only downside currently is how it doesn't feel like a Mac OS X app. It's got it's own ugly cross-platform GUI. I wish there was sumone with enough time on his hands to tie ScummVMs functionalities to OS X elements like menu items or a Preferences window instead of having an ugly launcher GUI.

It doesn't care what system the game was originally written for, as the games usually had the same file format across platforms (x86 68k ppc etc).

 

[Carthag]

Ya, I was oversimplifying. There are variants in the actual graphic/sound formats, but the actual file structures are the same. If you were to argue that scummvm is an emulator, you'd end up defining the original scumm interpreters as emulators too, as they execute the same compiled bytecode (the game logic). Same goes for java & other bytecode compiled languages, which aren't considered emulators either.

Anyway, I believe all functionality of scummvm can be achieved through the command-line, so it should be possible to write a cocoa frontend if you really wanted to. There have been a couple launchers I've heard of, but I don't know how good they are, I never tried them. I don't mind the launcher, as I only see it for 2 seconds anyway.