House Party 0.7.0 latest version download

The first binary release of the PlayStation 2 Port has now been posted to our forums in this thread. It was not added to the download pages as it still needs some testing. If you've got a PlayStation 2 with a modchip, grab it and tell us about your results.

In light of the 0.8.0 release, which requires the additional SKY.CPT file to run Beneath a Steel Sky, we've updated the archive of the freeware CD version to include this file, and while we were at it, updated the data files to the last-known released version of BASS, which should fix some text issues that appear when playing the game in non-english languages.

You can download it from the downloads page (whenever the SourceForge mirrors pick it up), or download the SKY.CPT file separately here.

We are pleased to announce a long-awaited ScummVM 0.8.0 release. We, the ScummVM Team, have prepared a big pack of new features for you. Most outstanding amongst these are:

• New improved launcher and in-game GUI
• Support for Inherit the Earth and Gobliiins
• Playstation Portable, Playstation 2 and EPOC/SymbianOS ports
• CGA and Hercules rendering modes for some games
• Preliminary support for NES and C64 LucasArts games
• Much improved support for Humongous Entertainment children games (Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam, Putt-Putt, Spy Fox, Fatty Bear, Backyard Sports and Buzzy)

You may find a more detailed list of changes as well as files to download at our downloads page. We encourage you to update to this latest and best ScummVM version as soon as possible.

Along with this release, we are also pleased to announce the launch of our new forums. Located at the easy to remember address of http://forums.scummvm.org/, the new forums feature individual sub-forums for Ports, and many new functions for both the users and moderators alike.

Please note that the SourceForge.net forums will be closed and archived within the next 48 hours. These archives will be available from the bottom of the forums' Main Index page.

Hello, fellow users. Now it's time to help the ScummVM team bring out a new release of err... ScummVM. Ta-da!

We have a large amount of changes, new features and bugfixes. Almost every aspect of the program was touched, tuned, altered. So we once again need to ask for testers of every game we support.

We'd like to mention two completely new titles we support now. They are Inherit the Earth and Gobliiins (first one in the series). Please, pay attention to those too.

Instructions on how to do the testing are located at our Wiki page. Please, stick to those and report on our mailing list, on #scummvm or in our forums.

The last bastion of the screenshots camp has fallen. We have just received Zak v1 shots and that means that all is done. Thanks a lot to you, our fellow users, who took part in this saga. There are too many of you to mention, but you know who you are.

We also need to test another couple of newly supported games. These are Maniac Mansion NES version and Zak McKracken Commodore 64. See sections 3.8 and 3.9 in our README on how to run these. We need to know whether these games are completable or not.

If you like screenshots as much as we do, you can play an integral role in demonstrating the capabilities of ScummVM with merely single still-frame image.

Basically, we need you to submit screenshots for our screenshots gallery. We have an explanation of the proper way to do so here in our wiki.

So, if you've got a few minutes, an interesting save in the middle of a game, and you want to help, please feel free to take and submit a screenshot of it. As the wiki states, ScummVM should be in HQ2x mode with aspect ratio correction ON.

Due to a local space/time vortex which will in the future be located near Earth, the meaning of 'regularly' may be in flux. Stay tuned for further updates.

And now, to current news:

We're happy to report that Ron Gilbert, co-creator of Maniac Mansion and SCUMM, made a nice reference to ScummVM on his website (Grumpy Gamer. Or so we hear from Slashdot, which seems to have brought his site to its knees :)

Please note, however, that the Nintendo DS port mentioned is not yet an official or supported port. So please don't contact us about it, because we can't help :)

The contents of Rons latest post has been quoted in this blogspot post. For the record, we've given Ron the nod in our readme.txt since Wed Apr 17 17:31:05 2002 (UTC).

We're also calling for testers to report problems with 'Inherit the Earth' (details and purchase information behind the link!). Please use the bug tracker, and set the correct game under Group. Please only test with the latest CVS version. Thanks!

On the downside, we really need to post news more regularly. On the upside, we have accumulated a lot to tell you about:

• Ports are important for us -- that much we have in common with the good ol' pirates from Monkey Island. Of course in our case it's not the wet kind (with ships and stuff), but rather ports of ScummVM to different architectures. On that front, we have some pretty nice things coming up for the next ScummVM release, including an official PlayStation 2 port, as well as the AmigaOS port now being official, too. And with some luck maybe even the often requested EPOC/Symbian port will finally be a regular part of ScummVM (take a look at the relevant patch tracker item if you are curious).

• We added a new game engine, this time for Coktel's Gobliiins series. So far, Gobliiins 1 is completable. Work on the other parts (Gobliins 2, Goblins 3, and "The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble") has not yet begun, but at least Gobliins 2 seems to be similar to part 1, so we hope to have that in the foreseeable future, too. Regarding the other parts, we'll see...
• Thanks to the hard work of some dedicated people we also finally support the (in)famous NES version of Maniac Mansion. Wow, that should be about the last LucasArts SCUMM game we were not supporting ... ;-)
• Support for Humongous Entertainment's kids games is progressing well, the following titles can be completed with the current development version of ScummVM:
  • Freddi Fish 1 - 4
  • Pajama Sam 1 & 2
  • Putt-Putt (several titles)
  • Spy Fox 1 & 2
  • Several arcade titles

• No, I didn't undergo plastic surgery (although another pair of thumbs sounds tempting...). Rather, we added support for thumbnails in SCUMM savegames. Pretty cool stuff, click here for a screenshot.

Not too shabby, we think. And we actually have more really cool stuff in the works, stay tuned.

Apart from previous hints, more information is now available about the ScummVM project Dragon.

Please note that Dragon is still very much an unreleased Work In Progress, but things have just started working and we're expecting to announce more about this project over the coming week.

Although it will not be part of the official ScummVM program, some of our team members have been working on a little easter surprise for you all. Unfortunately, we're running a bit late.

Expect something very sweet (especially for Linux and Mac people) soon...

We are pleased to announce the release of ScummVM 0.7.1. This update concentrates on fixing bugs from 0.7.0, especially in the Windows Mobile port (PocketPC / Smartphone). For more information check out the release notes.

As usual, you can download it from our downloads page.

On an unrelated side note, we received even more boot params from you, our dear users, in the past two weeks. Many thanks to those who contributed!

We now have an extensive list of boot params for Fate of Atlantis on our boot params page. Many thanks to Laura Abbott who spent a lot of time to compose this list and then generously donated it to us. I am sure this will help us working on FOA issues in the future.

In other news, Robert Kelsen has volunteered to work as a SlackWare packager, and has started by providing a SlackWare binary of 0.7.0. Way to go, Rob!

So, apparently, some people actually read our news section... I am astonished ;-). Thanks to all of you out there who contribute to ScummVM by providing us with useful feedback, and the occasional praise -- both really help keeping up interest in working on ScummVM!

I guess it's time for the usual, regular, monthly sign of life, "Yes, we are alive. No, we still won't merge with FreeSCI. Yes, you can donate your Ferrari to me, I might reconsider then."
As usual, lots of small and big things happened, we might post some info in the not too distant future. In the meantime, I'd like to set a spotlight on a small but nifty detail, maybe it'll be of interest/use to some of you...:

Some time ago, we added a list of boot params to our documentation section. Maybe you have already noticed it, if not, check it out.

In case you don't know what a boot param is (shame on you!), I actually tried to explain it on that page, so, have a look anyway ;-). If you think the explanation is not clear enough, drop me a line and tell me how to improve it.

And if you really want to feel cool, you can even contribute a bit here and help us out by filling in some of the gaps in our boot param tables. Once again, see the boot param page for more information.

First off: once more a Happy New Year to all of you out there!

We just wanted to let you know that since the release of ScummVM 0.7.0 a week ago, a few more binaries have arrived at your download page. We now offer binaries for the following systems:

• Windows
• Mac OS X
• Linux: Fedora Core
• Solaris 8
• PalmOS
• PocketPC (WinCE)
• Dreamcast
• BeOS

... and hopefully the Debian package will be ready soon.

That's already quite nice, but more never hurts. For example, it would be nice to have packages for Mandrake, Slackware, Solaris x86, or your favorite toaster. So if you are interested in joining us as a packager, please contact us.

And now for something completely different: Taking a look at our project statistics page, you might notice that we have now more than 10,000,000 page views (accumulated over the total life time of ScummVM as a SourceForge.net project), and have served more than 1.1 million downloads since our conception. Not too shabby, we think :-)

We are proud to announce the release of ScummVM 0.7.0, right in time for Christmas Eve!

While not quite as ground breaking as some of our previous major releases, this version sports some notable improvements and additions, amongst them:

• Added preliminary support for 26 Humongous Entertainment titles
• Added support for FLAC (lossless) encoded audio files
• Added native support for Macintosh versions of some SCUMM games -- this means the 'rescumm' tool is now mostly obsolete, and you can now play those games directly from the original CD
• Added smooth horizontal scrolling for The Dig, Full Throttle and COMI (matching the original engine)
• Added support for compressed speech and music in Broken Sword 1 and 2
• And as usual, we fixed lots and lots of bugs

A link to the release notes and a more detailed list of changes can be found over on the downloads page, along with the download links. Updating to this latest and greatest version is strongly recommended to all our users.

It's been almost two months since we started our website design contest, and I know some of you have been eagerly awaiting the outcome. Since the team couldn't quite decide on who should be winner, we let you, our dear users, have a word in the outcome of this epic battle. And finally, we are happy to let it be known that after about 1400 votes we do have a clear winner! And it is... draven, with a strong majority of 55% of all votes! Congratulations, draven!

So what now? We'll be settling the issue of the prize(s) for the winning entry in the next few days, and start working on implementing the new design. We consider doing some further tweaks to it (like, some people suggested to actually use the logo of jeanm's submission; and we have some other ideas up our sleeves). This may take some time, partially because it's a holiday time for a lot of us. So I am afraid you'll have to be a bit more patient.

Good things need time :-).

We are pleased to reopen our website poll. We found a free poll service, but unfortunately it is ad-driven. Please bear with this.

P.S.: If you have already given your vote with the old poll, you will have to re-vote using the new poll.

Since so many people decided to screw the results of the poll, it is temporarily closed while we make a more cheat-proof script. We'll let you know when voting is back online.

Yo folks,

you are probably all wondering . Well, good question :-)

First off, let me tell you that some of the submitted designs are really awesome, and I would hereby like to thank all the people who submitted their work. Sorry for letting you wait so long on the outcome.

Now, to determine the winner, we conducted an internal poll with the team. This took some time until all team members were able to submit their filled out forms. That process didn't produce a clear winner, though. So then, some of us wanted to conduct a poll amongst you, dear users, to pick the winner out of the three finalists. For various reasons, that just didn't happen... until now!

Go to our poll page to see the finalists, and to be able to poll on them! We'll let this polling go for about 14 days, at which point we'll finally decide on the winner.

On another matter, we have now started work on the next major release of ScummVM. 0.7.0 is (rather aggressively) scheduled for Christmas 2004! We hope to be able to deliver a nice christmas present to you this way. But for this to work out, we need your help: We need people who actively test the latest CVS so that we can iron out and fix all remaining issues with it, to ensure a high quality release.

If you want to help, check out the release status page for a list of games which need testing.

That's it for today, hopefully the next time around we can announce something more substantial (like a new release or a new website). Until then: happy play testing to all of you!

P.S.: Maybe you also have been wondering As a matter of fact, we are now working towards this goal. There is basically a single major piece missing for that: a good user manual. If you are a skilled manual writer, have some spare time, and want to help, drop us a mail on the scummvm-devel mailing list.

Several months have passed since we last updated our FAQ. Lots of things have happened in the meanwhile and we have added a nice collection of new answers to it. So what are you waiting for? Go and read the FAQ now!

Well, we left it open a bit longer for those who ran late... but the entries for the ScummVM Revamp contest are now closed. Judges will be looking at the pages over the last few days, and unless there is an out-right winner the finalists will be voted on by YOU - our dearest users :)

Further information will be posted soon. The winner will receive some Random Stuff(tm), with the main prize being some Sam and Max swag (most likely) signed by the creator of Sam and Max, Steve Purcell. Further information will be posted soon!

Anybody wishing to enter the Website Revamp contest better get their entries in, only two days left!

So far we have only five entries. Thats not too bad, but I was hoping for at least another five more. So if your still sitting on an entry, SEND IT IN!

Please send all contest entries to contest@scummvm.org. Further information on this contest is available a couple of posts down.

Greetings fellow adventurers!

Just a reminder that the submission deadline for the Website Revamp contest is here in just ten days! The very first submission was just received, so if you have yet to even start, time is running out.

The prizes will be announced as soon as somebody gets back to me since certain sites news posts suggest he hasn't forgotten :)

Hello, humble Website Watchers. We have gathered you all here today for a contest of most epic proportions.

Well, not really.

We're holding a contest to redesign the ScummVM website. If you have talent, and want to contribute something to ScummVM, here is your chance.

Rules

• Designs should be submitted in Photoshop (.PSD) or GIMP (.XCF) format. Layers should be used, and consideration taken that the majority of the design is feasibly done in HTML with minimal use of large graphical elements.
• The completed design must be designed for optimal use at 1024x768, but the page should be designed to be renderable in lower resolutions and in text-only browsers.
• The main focus should be on an easy, noticeable and uncrowded navigation system.
• Sites submitted with a completed HTML template will be considered for extra points if they obey the following extra rules. Otherwise they will be graded on design merits only.
  • Completed sites should be submitted as a one-page HTML template. All original graphics should be included (layered if applicable) in Photoshop .PSD or GIMP .XCF format.
  • Sites must have readable HTML/CSS code, and should be quick-loading and as 'light' as possible.
  • Sites should be W3C HTML4.01 verified, and have no particular browser dependencies.

Submissions close on the 21st of October, and public voting will occur after the team has selected the final candidates. There will be a prize or two of some sort for the winner, which will be announced at a later date. Please e-mail all submissions to contest@scummvm.org in a .zip, .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 archive.

Well, this is just to let you know we are not dead. There has been some amazing work happening in the last few weeks - with ScummVMs support for the HE SCUMM games improving in rapid bursts thanks to the combined talent of cyx, Kirben and Sev. And of course, there has been more development than just this.

And now we would like to bring up the point that our side-projects Residual and ScummEX both need developers and contributors. We welcome patches from other programmers very much. With the help of ScummVM developers joostp and aquadran, salty-horse (a regular #scummvm'er) today submitted a patch for lipsync animations in Residual. Please see our 'subprojects' page and the 'Coding Guidelines' in our Documentation section. If you are interested in persuing a particular problem, please e-mail the "-devel" mailing list or pop on IRC if you need advice or help.

ScummVM version 0.6.1b was released today, fixing some very annoying regressions we discovered in its predecessor, 0.6.1. Everybody is strongly recommended to update to this version

And now... have some fun, folks!

Well, one of those "Small Yet Important" coding mistakes has cropped up in ScummVM 0.6.1. A copy-and-paste error in the 'Edit Game' screen may result in people not being able to save a game.

The mistake involves the new 'Paths' tab, which allows for easier editing of game paths. Unfortunately, the 'Extra Path' field on this screen is accidentally saved as directory to use for saved games, instead of correct field below it. This was noticed and fixed in the experimental CVS version, but the fix was mistakenly left out of the ScummVM 0.6.1 release.

If you encounter this glitch, the recommended work around is to set the Extra Path to the saved game directory. ScummVM 0.6.1b will be released soon to correct this issue.

ScummVM 0.6.1 is out, and can now be grabbed from our download page!
Among the usual changes, ScummVM should now run natively on 64-bit machines -- something we actually forgot to mention in the NEWS file.

And you know what they say: "To save the world, you have to push a few old ladies down the stairs." So we made a mother-load of fixes in this release. Some of the wonderful things you will no LONGER see in ScummVM include:

• Glitches using an Ogg Vorbis talkie file in some games
• Crashes on 64-bit machines
• Crashes when saving to an invalid directory in Broken Sword 1
• Lots of sound glitches in Curse of Monkey Island, Full Throttle and The Dig
• Crashes in some international versions of Simon the Sorcerer
• ... and lots of other annoying bugs!

So don't delay, download today. Downloads are not yet available for all supported ports, such as non-ARM PocketPCs and the HandheldPC binaries. These should become available within the next week.

This is just a quick update to let everybody know we're still alive. Work on ScummVM is progressing as per usual, and we intend to release ScummVM 0.6.1 shortly.

ScummVM 0.6.1 will contain several bugfixes for various games, as well as several sound and music enhancements for later SCUMM games (Full Throttle, The Dig, Curse of Monkey Island).

Also, followers of CVS may have noticed that support for Another World was recently added. This provoked quite a bit of argument within the ScummVM team as to whether this is considered an adventure and within ScummVMs goals.

After much debate, the engine author (cyx) decided that it would be more convenient to continue the project seperate from ScummVM. It has now been removed, and future information and development will occur as part of the RAW project. To prevent any doomsday predictions, I should also point out that he remains a member of the ScummVM team.

CABAL team splits over fundamental design issues

After yesterdays ground-breaking announcement, we are sad to announce the immediate disbandment of the CABAL team. Over the last several days there has been heated debate regarding several important design issues, and current tension in the team has risen to an insurmountable level.

"It's really unfortunate", Max Horn, senior developer on ScummVM and Exult, was quoted as saying, "but [former FreeSCI maintainer] Christoph [Reichenbach]'s ideas of aligning curly braces with the left-hand side of function declarations while appending them to the end of the line for 'while' and 'for' loops did not make any sense at all."
The latter replied by pointing out that "using anything but tabs for indentation is calling for trouble."

Claudio Matsuoka, of the Sarien project, pointed out his disappointment and noted that he didn't see much of a point in trying to co-operate with people entirely incapable of reaching agreements on such trivial issues. "I mean, we haven't even resolved the entire EMACS vs. vi dispute, and they're already at each other's throats again."
James Brown, another senior developer on the ScummVM project, sadly announced that he was laughed out of the project meer hours before a decision to split was made. "They just said I didn't belong, since I prefer nano as a editor..." he admitted.

April 1st, THE INTERNET: The FreeSCI, Sarien and ScummVM teams today announced the formation of CABAL (Coalesced 'Adventures beyond Architecture' League), a universal adventure game interpreter. This new project will unite the strengths and capabilities of the projects involved, creating what the project members believe will be a revolution for adventure game fans around the globe.

When asked about the relevance of CABAL for the worldwide adventure gaming market, ScummVM project lead Max Horn commented that "[with] the market for adventure titles waning, we believe that the formation of a project with the explicit goal of running every adventure game ever released will infuse it with new life." FreeSCI maintainer Lars Skovlund added that "this will certainly cause an upheaval in the gaming world. Adventure game fans around the world, rejoice!".

In addition to supporting LucasArts' SCUMM games (including famous titles such as "Monkey Island", "Indiana Jones" and "Sam and Max"), Sierra's SCI and AGI lines ("King's Quest", "Leisure Suit Larry", "Space Quest"...), and other games already supported by the retrospective engines, the newly united team plans to continue to add further titles to their already impressive list.

• An Infocom module (based on the Frotz Z-machine interpreter), so you can now play your favorite text adventures anywhere you go!
• Exult is being merged in as a plugin, allowing Ultima 7 fans around the world to play their favorite game on the many platforms already supported by the CABAL component engines - including Palm/PocketPC PDAs and the Dreamcast.
• Revolution software has offered the source-code for Broken Sword 3, which will be added to the titles supported by the upcoming CABAL3D project - alongside with Grim Fandango and, possibly, Ultima IX (negotiations are ongoing).
• Support for the SNES games Final Fantasy IV through VI (Japanese numbering, i.e. FF2/FF3 according to US releases) is planned for sometime this Fall. Whilst these are not strictly adventure games, the storyline and plots in this series are more imaginative than any 'action adventure' title published in recent years.

Offers by various companies, including Microsoft and Amiga International, to buy out the team have been gently but firmly declined by the leads of the joint project. "We know that we could earn a lot of money from this, but we are idealists and at this time we have the goal to reform the worlds adventure market. Once that is achieved, we can reconsider about making some money out of this."

A few people have asked for further details on the TechTV segment featuring ScummVM. Well, you can read the online article intended to compliment the segment on the TechTV Website.

ScummVM will be shown as 'Free File of the Day' on the 'Call for Help' program at 3PM EST on Friday the 19th of March, and again at 9AM Eastern on Monday the 22nd of March.

Don't know how to watch TechTV? I'm told those of you in America can tune into DirecTV channel 354, Dish Network channel #191, or locate the cable channel by following the instructions on tv.yahoo

Or, if you just happen to have a C-band dish in the general vicinity of GE Americom Satcom C4 at the time of the show, it's on transponder 12 at 135 degrees west, 40 degrees elevation.

Those lucky Australians subscribed to Foxtel Digital can also watch the program. I have to try and find somebody with FTD so I can watch it myself.

The ScummVM project is pleased to announce the immediate release of ScummVM 0.6.0. ScummVM is a graphic adventure game interpreter designed to allow users to play many classic adventure game titles on various computer systems; (Linux, Windows 2000/XP, *BSD, Mac OS X, PocketPC/Handheld PC, Palm, Dreamcast and more)

Version 0.6.0 brings with it a new milestone in ScummVM history, with all LucasArts/LucasFilm SCUMM adventure titles now being supported. We are also proud to announce in conjunction with ScummVM 0.6.0 the release of the classic adventure game 'Flight of the Amazon Queen' (originally available for the Amiga and DOS) as freeware. The ScummVM team would like to thank the authors Steve Stamatiadis and John Passfield for providing the team with the source code to this classic game, and allowing us to release it.

So, what's new?

ScummVM 0.6.0 includes, as usual, many bugfixes in all supported game engines. There have also been dramatic fixes and improvements in the area of sound and music, as well as a greatly improved game management/options screen and two new graphics modes (HQ2x and HQ3x). Most importantly, we have also added new support for the following games:

• The classic V1 versions of the original LucasArts SCUMM games Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the LucasArts SCUMM game 'Full Throttle'
• Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 2. Many thanks to Revolution for providing us with the source-code to these games.
• Support for Flight of the Amazon Queen. Thanks to Steve and John for providing us with the source code to this game, and permitting its release as freeware.

ScummVM 0.6.0, the two freeware games Flight of the Amazon Queen and Beneath a Steel Sky, as well as converted cutscenes required for playing Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 2 may be downloaded from the Download Page

ScummVM 0.6.0 will be released in the next 48 hours, along with our super special yet not really all that secret surprise!

Keep your eyes on this page!

What? We promised more frequent news updates? You lie! Prove it!... News archives you say? Pfffah. Um. We were hacked!

We are nearing the final release of ScummVM 0.6.0, and there are just a few last minute bugs to fix. We're also waiting for a reply to an e-mail from twopeople whom have recently gone on an international jaunt, under the guise of 'work'. We have heard rumors they have been seen in San Francisco running around naked screaming "I'm working, I'm working". If spotted, approach with extreme caution, as they may be holidaying and dangerous.

On a related, but more serious note, since the above pair are reasonably incommunicardo, we may be releasing ScummVM 0.6.0 without the previously promised freeware game, which will instead be released at a later stage.

We will leave you now with the promised blatently stolen quote. There is no subliminal message enclosed. Honest.

Anyway, to answer your question, to get into the games industry, break into the Sony party at E3, walk around saying "Online multiplayer is the future," and if nobody has hired you by 11:00 pm, sleep with the first person you hear speaking either Japanese or French. Worked for me!

- Tim Schafer, as seen onDoubleFine, replying to a nutty fans e-mail.

Finally, Ender, your humble (yet lazy) news poster and co-project leader would like to let any Sony employees who happen to read this site know that he believes Online multiplayer is the future. We're not even going to touch the Sam and Max 2 thing. (Boo! Hiss!)

Stay tuned for more zany and space-filling content-less news posts in the future!

We have recently branched ScummVM 0.6.0, and are now entering the final testing phase. As such, we would be most happy if people could test the latest daily builds (or CVS build from tag 'branch-0-6-0' and report their results.

We have already conducted preliminary testing of several games, but the following still have not been tested and should take priority:

• V1 Maniac Mansion
• V2 Maniac Mansion
• V1 Zak McKracken
• V2 Zak McKracken
• EGA Indiana Jones 3
• VGA Indiana Jones 3
• EGA Monkey Island 1
• Monkey Island 2
• The Dig
• Curse of Monkey Island (Monkey 3)

Please report bugs in our bug tracker and successful completions of games on our General Forum. Thanks in advance for helping to shape up the next release of ScummVM!

Everybody here at ScummVM Central, well, everybody still conscious, hopes that everybody is having (or has had) a good Christmas!

As a vague attempt to start our new years resolution (of posting news more frequently) a bit early, here is a mostly pointless news post. First, a request. If anybody notices any article in the media about ScummVM (or indeed is from the media), please e-mail press [at] scummvm.org so we can add it to our press page.

The release schedule for 0.6.0 has been pushed back a little due to various problems (such as reencoding Broken Sword cutscenes) and heavy development on certain features (like Full Throttles INSANE subsystem).

In an effort to reduce the length of our pre-release testing phase, I would ask that anybody here who does use a daily or CVS build please report any bugs they find in every-day use. This includes (despite what we usually say) our 'new' games: Full Throttle, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Broken Sword 1 and 2.

As we are calling for testers before we 'freeze' development for a new release, please ensure you test with the latest available CVS before reporting any bugs.

Whilst we know that the end of the year is approaching, it saddens us to announce that the ScummVM project is closing due to personal reasons on behalf of most of the developers. Visitors to our forum, such as timofonic, have suspected this may be the case for some time and unfortunately I have been urged by einheitlix to tell the truth.

It's been a great ride, and we had some really wonderful things in store for you, such as a new game we were planning to freeware for our next release, and the announcement that the oft-requested completion of support for Full Throttle was underway - although it would probably be in 0.7.0 not 0.6.0... but it's moot now.

I was planning on holding back this news until after the festivities, but as it's just a hoax to see how many people actually read our news page and pay attention, I've decided to announce it now.

In summary, in case people just skimmed that last paragraph: we are NOT really dead. We're very much alive and kicking, and will be bringing you lots-o-cool-stuff early next year!

(not so hidden link... see whats in store for the next version!)

Welcome to yet another quasi-regular reminder that, yes, your favorite project is far from dead. So what's going on in the world of ScummVM?

ScummVM 0.6.0, although not due out for a few months at least, is going to knock your socks off. Or at least, make them a nice shade of purple. Among the usual massive structural changes, bugfixes galore, and maybe even a new platform or two... we have recently (almost) finished support for the original V1 versions of Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken. This leaves the ever difficult Full Throttle as the only LucasArts game we do not support in it's mainstream form.

Also, thanks once more to the gracious support of Revolution, the next version of ScummVM will include support for yet another of their wonderful innovative games - Broken Sword 2!

These are both already present, in some form, in our developmental CVS and daily builds - however please remember they are experimental and still being heavily worked on. Please do NOT file bugs or pester anyone regarding them. And maybe, just maybe, we might have some more surprises in store before the next major release makes it to a SourceForge mirror near you!

ScummVM version 0.5.1 was released today, fixing several issues uncovered since ScummVM 0.5.0.

The following changes are included in this release:

• Beneath a Steel Sky savegame code completely rewritten, eliminating several situations where ScummVM 0.5.0 would produce unusable 'frozen' saved games
• Several other Beneath a Steel Sky bugs have been fixed
• Some Curse of Monkey Island actor graphical issues have been fixed
• Some issues when running ScummVM fullscreen under MacOS X have been resolved
• MorphOS port has undergone several critical bugfixes
• Dreamcast port now supports Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2

We recommend all users upgrade to this release. Please note that whilst BASS saves from 0.5.0 are compatible with this release, we recommend restarting your game using the 0.5.1 save system if you continue to experience problems.

Although ScummVM 0.5.0 is our most tested version yet, a few problems always slip through the cracks. Among some other minor issues, it has come to our attention that Beneath a Steel Sky may occasionally produce unusable save games. Although this is a timing issue, and very rare on most systems, a small group of people may discover this happening fairly often.

A ScummVM 0.5.1 point release is planned in the near-future to fix this, and several other smaller issues which have came to our attention. Also, the manual for Beneath a Steel sky and possibly a scan of the included comic will be available for download later in the week.

Thanks for everybody's support, and assistance in making our project even better!

Version 0.5.0 of ScummVM, the classic adventure game interpreter, has just been released. This is our most tested version yet, thanks to everybody who answered our call for testing. Thanks!

So what's new? Well, besides the usual bugfixes and improvements are:

• Extensive overhaul of the music subsystem, more games now support music
• Support for the Enhanced (V2) versions of Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken
• Support for Beneath a Steel Sky, made possible thanks to Revolution Software supplying us with the original assembly source code!
• Aspect Ratio correction added, by popular request

A link to the release notes and a more detailed list of changes can be found over on the downloads page, along with the downloads... and our special (worst kept secret :) surprise!

As an extra SPECIAL bonus, the really really wonderful people at Revolution Software Ltd. have decided to allow us to make Beneath a Steel Sky *freeware!* You can download either the CD version (70M, includes speech) or the smaller Floppy version (8M), along with ScummVM 0.5.0, from the downloads page.

Enjoy! Oh, and there is that little donate button down there on the left. We need to buy our Dreamcast porter a copy of Simon the Sorcerer :)

ScummVM has just entered a CVS freeze and testing, to prepare for an eventual 0.5.0 stable release (hopefully at the end of July). But we need YOUR help!

Please click that little 'Documentation' option over there, and look at the 0.5.0 release checklist. If there is a game that is listed as needing testing, and you happen to feel like playing it through with the latest development version of ScummVM, please do so and let us know the results. Further information is on the checklist page.

Besides many fixes that will be in the upcoming 0.5.0, especially in the area of music, comes support for three new games:

• Enhanced Maniac Mansion
• Enhanced Zak McKracken
• Beneath a Steel Sky, thanks to the support of Revolution

In other news, Anonymous CVS is (and has been for some time) lagging behind the official development tree. If you want the bleeding-edge CVS (for testing, as an example), please use the 'Source Snapshot' on the Download page over Anonymous CVS. And of course,
Be Vigilant

ScummVM 0.4.1, a stability-focused point release, is now available for download. Changes since 0.4.0 include:

• Several crashes/bugs have been fixed in Curse of Monkey Island.
• Several iMUSE and music-related bugs have been fixed.
• AdvMame3X is new, giving a 3x scaled and AdvMame-smoothed game.
• Fixed airport doors in Zak McKracken
• Fixed crash in SDL backend

The source code, as well as binaries for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris and PalmOS are already available at our download page. As always, other binaries (for PocketPC, MorphOS, Dreamcast and others) will follow shortly.

Five months after our last release, 0.3.0b, and over 2500 CVS commits/adds later, the ScummVM team proudly presents ScummVM 0.4.0.

The following is an overview of what's new in 0.4.0:

• Curse of Monkey Island (comi) support (experimental)
• Added support for the EGA versions of Loom, Monkey Island and Indy3
• Improved music support in Indy3 and the floppy versions of Monkey Island
• Many Simon the Sorcerer 1 & 2 improvements and fixes
• Very pre-alpha Beneath a Steel Sky code. Don't expect it to do anything (in fact it is disabled in the 0.4.0 release, but you can get it by compiling ScummVM yourself).
• Even more pre-alpha support for enhanced versions of V2 SCUMM games (Maniac Mansion and Zak)
• Preliminary support for early Humongous Entertainment titles (very experimental)
• New debug console and several GUI/Launcher enhancements
• New Save/Load code (easier to expand while retaining compatibility)
• Dreamcast port now works with new games added for 0.3.0b
• New official PalmOS port
• Various minor and not so minor SCUMM game fixes
• Large memory leak fixed for The Dig/COMI
• SMUSH code optimised, frame dropping added for slower machines
• Code cleanups

The source code, as well as binaries for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, PocketPC, Solaris and PalmOS are already available at our download page. Other binaries for MorphOS, Dreamcast and others, will follow shortly.

We hope you will enjoy the best ScummVM ever!

We've received a number of e-mails lately asking if any work is happening on ScummVM. We would like to reassure people that do -not- follow CVS that yes, a lot of work is happening.

We are currently gearing up for the release of 0.4.0, which should be happening within a few weeks. I'd like to ask people who feel like living dangerously to try out CVS and Daily Builds, and let us know of any problems we should be aware of. In the 'Documentation' section on the left, you will see a 'ScummVM 0.4.0 Checklist'. Games that have been tested without any problems are marked there - please test the games that are not marked tested and let us know your results on the Forum (Update: That's the General forum). Remember to include the date you downloaded the build you completed the game with.

At the moment we are focusing on earlier EGA games (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, LoomEGA, Indy3EGA), although Beneath a Steel Sky support is progressing at a slow but steady pace. Somebody also recently donated a Playstation 2 modchip to the team, so expect a native PS2 port as soon as Ender has it installed (ScummVM already runs fine under Playstation2 Linux).

A reminder to those that are interested in our latest progress, you can always sign up to the cvs-logs mailing list. Click the 'Project Home' link on the left, and browse to the 'Lists' page. This list will receive an e-mail every time there is a new change to the source-code, so be warned it can be rather technical and high-traffic. As an alternative you can just play with CVS Checkouts or Daily Builds and discover anything new yourself :)

Last Friday, March 14th, our fellow ScummVM developer and friend, Felix Jakschitsch (known to many under his nickname yot), committed suicide at the young age of 19.

We are completely shocked by this, and do not know or understand what drove him into this. It is a sorrowful world in which a cheerful, intelligent and helpful man is put in a situation in which he sees no other way to escape than taking his own life. We are sad to lose our valued friend. He contributed important work to ScummVM, including much of the Zak256 support. His loss is felt deeply by all of us, and we extend our condolence to his family and close friends, whose grief we share.

If you want to leave a message to his friends and family, there is a guestbook available. Also here is a news paper article telling more details (use babelfish if you don't speak german).

Felix, we miss you and will never forget you.

• February 2003: Curse of Monkey Island completable
• Feb - Mar 2003: Regression testing/bugfixes for other supported games
• Feb - Mar 2003: Completion of the Launcher functionality (tabbed option dialogs, etc)
• Early March 03: CVS Freeze, Regression testing, 0.4.0 release
• March onwards: V1/V2 game support (Maniac Mansion, non-FmTowns Zak, EGA Loom, etc.)

• 14th: ScummVM Downloads and Mailing Lists will be unavailable between approximatly 16:00 Pacific Time (GMT-8), till 19:00.
• 17th: The main ScummVM site, and CVS tree, will be unavailable from 10:00 Pacific. This may last up to 12 hours, but hopefully less!

• Zak McKracken (FmTowns 256 Color Version)
• Monkey Island (VGA Floppy and Enhanced CD)
• Monkey Island II
• Loom (CD Talkie version)
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• Day of the Tentacle
• Sam and Max Hit the Road
• The Dig
• Simon The Sorcerer 1

• Simon The Sorcerer 2
• Full Throttle
• Indiana Jones and Last Crusade (256 color version)

• 0.2.5: All supported games next to bugless
• 0.3.0: The Dig and MI1 VGA Floppy supported
• 0.4.0: Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade supported, more bugfixes
• 0.5.0: Full Throttle supported, basic CMI and Maniac Mansion support
• 0.6.0: More work on CMI, MM and further bugfixes
• 0.7.0: Maniac Mansion completable, Zak McCracken and Loom16 playable
• 0.8.0: Zak McCracken and Loom16 completable
• 0.9.0: Bugfixes and CMI completable
• 1.0.0: The end of the beginning