Game engines

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This is a list of known game engines

Before Diving in
The LGASVM tab tracks the Likelihood of an engine getting added ScummVM. This tab is here because ScummVM is the main active engine recreation project (there's almost no other project like it)
The LGASVM tab is broken down like this
  • High: has a high chance of getting added because it has many high profile games, as wells as, many games that don't break rules and polices of ScummVM.
  • Low: The chance of this engine getting added to ScummVM is low
  • Medium: While these engines may not take top priority, there is a good chance of it getting added.
  • None: These engines will likely never get added ScummVM.
The following letters denotes:
  • A: The engine was use mostly for adult games that brake ScummVM's rules and/or policies
  • B: Under ScummVM's current rules, and/or polices, this engine will never get added
  • C: Circa
  • D: The engines no longer being developed and/or has been discontinued
  • E: The engine (as far as anyone can tell) is still being maintained and/or developed by the engine developer.
  • G: This engine will never get added because it doesn't suit ScummVM's current project goals.
  • H: The engine has historic significance.
  • N: The engine lacks notable games
  • T: The engine is too new to benefit from a engine recreation.

What is a game engine?

Placeholder Text

Engines

Name Released LGASVM Letters NOG Description, SVM Support & Other Recreation Projects
Atlas 1994 High HD 47+ Developed by Davidson & Associates, It was used make many kids games and oddities like What's Her Face!, Superstar Rivals and the 2002 adaptation of American Idol.

It place in Video game history is in edutainment, Atlas was used to make entries in classic franchises like the Davidson's Learning Center series, Blaster series, and the JumpStart series. it was used to make quite a few Fisher-Price games as well.

CineActive 1995c Medium D 3+ An engine developed by Peter Marx for FMV games. There are only three game currently known to of used this engine: Terror T.R.A.X.: Track of the Vampire, Johnny Mnemonic and the windows version of Capcom's Fox Hunt.
ExEn 2000 None GD 125+
Magnus ???? Low D 14 Engine developed by Ivanoff Interactive A/S.
Mascot Capsule 2001 None GD 600
Mophun 2002 None GD 310+
Mugen 1999 None G
OpenBOR 2005 None G
Ren'Py 2004 Low E
Titan ???? Low D 22 Titan was developed by Compedia, They used this engine to make under thirty educational games, before moving to Macromedia Director for all their games.
Unity 2005 Low E

Visual Novel engines

Main article: The Visual Novel Problem
Name Released LGASVM NOG Letters Description, SVM Support & Other Recreation Projects
ADV98V 1991c Low 70 AHD An engine designed for the PC-98 series of computers.
ADVIZ 1992c None 7+ BHD An engine developed for the PC-98.
AGS 1993 None 6 BHD This is not that AGS, it a much older engine developed by C's Ware for the PC-98 that was use to make 90s classics like Eve ~Burst Error~, Desire and Love Potion. these games are some of the most impotent games in video game history, with of them being some of, if not, the first visual novels to get an English translation.
AI \ AI4 1989 None 80 BHD Custom engines designed for the PC-98 series of computers used to make some of the earliest games made by the ELF Corporation.
AI5 1991c Low 20+ AD An engine designed for DOS, PC-98, FM Towns and the Sharp X68000.
AVG32 1993c Low 25+ AHD Although it's unknown how many games were made with AVG32, the engine was vary popular with 90s VN developers. This engine was used to make classics like Air, Kanon and Gakuen Heaven.
BlueGale 2003 None 8 BND A custom engine developed by and named after BlueGale, a developer of adult visual novels.
CatSystem 1998 Low 100+ AD
CodeX RScrip 2002 Low 70 EA Custom engine developed and used by Liar-soft.
Comic Maker 1998c Medium 180+ D This hard to research engine was mainly used by dōjin developers, an engine recreation would help preserve many Japanese indie games.
Director 1985 Added 160+ HD While ScummVM has support for Macromedia Director, there is no official support for almost all of the VN's made with Director and there likely never will be, even when the versions of Director they run on are supported. there are roughly less then 15 VN's that fit their rules and policies


If you want an unfiltered look at visual novels currently work in ScummVM, you can go to the Director Database for that info.

Ethornell \ BGI 2004 Medium 90+ E
Hot Soup Processor 1994 Medium 35 EH HSP is a scripting language popular in Japan. its unlikely to get added to ScummVM because of the 35 visual novels made with it (since almost all of them have adult content) It would get added to preserve Japanese indie game history, dōjin titles and the many school projects made with HSP, that said, games made HSP are poorly documented \ archived,so a lot more research would be needed before it could be added.
Interheart FPK 1999 None 4 BD A custom engine developed by Interheart that was used to make a few of their games.
KaGuYa 2001 None 55 B Named after the company that develop it, this engine is used by almost every game by Atelier Kaguya.
KiriKiri 1998 High 3500+ HD One of the most widely use used engines, It has been used make classics like Fate/stay night, Witch on the Holy Night, 1999ChristmasEve and many other gems.
LiveMaker 2003 High 1100+ HD Mostly used by indie devs, it was to make dōjin classics like Shigatsu Youka, Dear My Abyss and Lemures Blue no Gozen 2 Ji. this
Main System 2002 Low 5 AD An engine almost entirely only used by BL game developer, Vivid Color.
Majiro Script Engine 2004 Low 118 AD
Malie 2001 Low 56 AD
MAPL 1995 None 30 BD
N2System 2003 Low 12 AHD A custom engine developed by Nitroplus, it was used for many visual novel classics such as CHAOS;HEAD, Steins;Gate, and DRAMAtical Murder.
NScripter 1999 High 1100+ HD Widely used by both commercial and dōjin developers. NScripter gave us classics like Ever17, Kurai Nichiyoubi, Memories Off 2nd and the When They Cry series (Ciconia, Higurashi, Umineko)
QLIE 2005c None 68 BD
RealLive 2001 Medium 100+ D The successor to AVG32, it was used to make of the genres most well known classics such as Little Busters, Clannad, & Planetarian
SaiSys 2000 None 60+ BD A custom engine made by Aqua House and used by them and their subsidiaries.
Shiina Rio 2000 Low 150+ AH An engine developed by Foster and used by WillPlus and their subsidiaries,
System 1988 Low 150+ AH Dating all the way back to 1988. Every game AliceSoft has made runs on a version of this engine. They currently use System 4.x to develop their games. While they have released some all ages games, most aren't, so the chance they will add support for this engine is low and if they do add support, its unlikely they will any version beyond version 1.0, aka, the historic version that put AliceSoft on the map.
System-98 1993 None 11 BHD A custom engine made by Excellents for the PC-98 and used by them and their subsidiaries.
System-NNN 2000 Low 110 AD
TMR-Hiro ADV System 2005 None 25 E
TyranoScript 2015 None 3000+ ET TyranoBuilder is an engine designed for making visual novels.
Wolf RPG Editor 1998 Medium 140+ E
YU-RIS 2001c Low 400+ E

VN Engine Ports

Engine REL LGASVM NOG Description
WADVIZ 1997c None-B 9+ The Windows 9x port of the ADVIZ engine
AI5Win 1997c Low-A 25+ The Windows 9x port of the AI5 engine

Engines Added to ScummVM

Main article: ScummVM
Name Released Support Description
Access 1991c Decent
ADL 1980 Good
Adventure Game Studio 1997 Decent
AGI 1984 Good
AGOS 1989 Decent
Composer 1995 Good
Cryomni3D \ Cryo 1995 Low
DGDS 1990 Low
Director 1985 Low
Freescape 1987 Decent
Glk ???? Good
Gob 1990c Decent
GrimE 1998 Decent
Groovie 1993 Decent
Hadesch 1998 Low
HDB 2001 Good
Hopkins 1998 Good
Hugo 1990 Good
Hypno 1995 Decent
Illusions 1997 Low
Kingdom 1995 Decent
Kyra 1991 Decent
Legend 1990 Preliminary ScummVM git fork
MADE 1992 Decent
Mohawk 1993 Decent
MADS \ M4 1992 Low
mTropolis 1995 Low
Nancy 1996 Low
QdEngine ???? Decent
Ring 1999 Preliminary ScummVM git fork
SAGA 1994 Decent
SCI 1988 Decent
SCUMM 1987 Decent
SLUDGE 2003 Preliminary
Tetraedge 2001 Low
Tinsel 1995 Decent
TsAGE 1992 Low
Ultima Various Low
Wintermute 2003 Low
Yaga 2002 Preliminary

Also See

Game engine recreations and source ports