ScummVM
Original developer(s) | Ludvig Strigeus (ludde), Vincent "yaz0r" Hamm, ScummVM Team |
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Current developer(s) | Eugene Sandulenko (sev), Arnaud Boutonné (Strangerke), ScummVM Team |
Latest version | 2.8.1 |
Active | Yes |
Platform(s) | Windows Linux macOS IRIX (Outdated) RISC OS MorphOS AmigaOS Raspberry Pi (Outdated) Pandora (Outdated) Android iOS Symbian (Outdated) PlayStation 2 (Outdated) PlayStation 3 (Outdated) PlayStation Portable PlayStation Vita Nintendo 64 (Outdated) GameCube (Outdated) Wii Nintendo Switch Nintendo DS Nintendo 3DS (Outdated) Dreamcast GP2X (Outdated) GP2X Wiz (Outdated) GP2X Caanoo (Outdated) GCW Zero (Outdated) and more |
Architecture(s) | x86, ARM |
Emulates | SCUMM Engine and many more game engines |
Website | ScummVM Website |
Support ($) | PayPal |
License | GNU GPLv2 |
Source code | GitHub |
ScummVM is an open-source collection of game engine recreations and source ports based around various adventure games and RPGs from the late 80s and 90s, and supports over 280 games (over 1800 if you count text adventures), making it the biggest project of its kind.
Download
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Official, older and daily releases |
Overview
ScummVM was originally a reverse engineered reimplementation of SCUMM, the game engine used in the adventure game Maniac Mansion, and it released on October 8, 2001. SCUMM is notable for its portability, having originally been designed for the Commodore 64, and then later ported to the Apple II and IBM PC. The technique of using a virtual machine for game development is not new, as it was previously used for text adventure games in the form of the Z-machine. But LucasArts also used it for manipulating graphics and sound, as doing so alleviated the burden of having to redevelop Maniac Mansion from scratch, and save time on getting subsequent ports to market.
ScummVM is similar; the simplicity of the engine makes it portable to a wide variety of platforms. Unlike a full-fledged system emulator, ScummVM only uses the resources it needs to run the games, like the original SCUMM (though the codebase does have emulators for hardware like sound cards), making the system requirements very modest and forgiving. Multiple versions of the same game are often supported, such as PC and console ports. Support for many games in ScummVM has even been contributed by official developers. Disney even republished Maniac Mansion on Steam using an outdated version of ScummVM.
On October 9, 2020, in a similar precedent to MAME and its fork MESS, the ScummVM Team merged the sister project ResidualVM into the ScummVM repository[1].
Supported games
ScummVM supports over 250 games from many publishers and developers. Here are just a few examples of the games it can run. For a more complete list, check out their compatibility page.
- 2D point-and-click adventure - Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, Sam & Max, Blade Runner, Simon the Sorcerer, Broken Sword, King's Quest, The Neverhood, Indiana Jones, and many more from companies such as; LucasArts, Sierra, Adventure Soft, Humongous Entertainment, Revolution, etc.
- 3D point-and-click adventure - Grim Fandango, Escape from Monkey Island, The Longest Journey
- Text adventure - Colossal Cave Adventure (the first known work of interactive fiction and the first text adventure game) and about 1600 more.
- Adventure - Myst series
- RPGs - Ultima 4, 6, 8. Might and Magic 4 & 5.
Features
These are some of the features that ScummVM has over the original games.
- Ported to lots of systems
- Fan translations
- Fangames
- Graphic filters
- Better performance
- MT-32 emulation
- Cloud storage and save game sync
- Discord Rich Presence
Guides and Info
References
- Emulators
- Game engine recreations
- Windows emulation software
- Linux emulation software
- MacOS emulation software
- IRIX emulation software
- RISC OS emulation software
- MorphOS emulation software
- AmigaOS emulation software
- Raspberry Pi emulation software
- Pandora emulation software
- Android emulation software
- IOS emulation software
- Symbian emulation software
- PlayStation 2 emulation software
- PlayStation 3 emulation software
- PlayStation Portable emulation software
- PlayStation Vita emulation software
- Nintendo 64 emulation software
- GameCube emulation software
- Wii emulation software
- Switch emulation software
- DS emulation software
- 3DS emulation software
- Dreamcast emulation software
- G2PX emulation software
- GP2X Wiz emulation software
- CAANOO emulation software
- GCW Zero emulation software