The Best Game that time forgot

All the inane chatter goes in here. If you're curious about whether we will support a game, post HERE not in General Discussion :)

Moderator: ScummVM Team

Alexander22
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:29 pm

The Best Game that time forgot

Post by Alexander22 »

Hello,

I want to know why the ScummVM programmers have forgot the best game all time: "Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes - The Case of Serrated Scalpel"

I Think that all people must know of the existence this great adventure where The Player, as Sherlock Holmes, is engaged by Scotland Yard to help with the murder investigation of a young actress. While the manner of her death suggests this is another strike by Jack the Ripper, Holmes believes someone else had committed the crime. The investigation takes Holmes and Watson to many parts of late 19th Century London, including a perfume shop, the zoological gardens, the morgue, a pub, several dwellings, an abandoned dock and of course 221B Baker Street.

But unfortunately ...

Nobody remember it...
I think that programmers must work in this great game because not only all psp users want to play it but also all users have not Dos-box in his psps, they believe that this game must work in ScummVM.

Here something screens of this classic:

Image

Image

Image



Image


I believe that if the programmers have made work games like “The Legend of Kyrandia� or “Borken Sword�.
So that the programmers could not make work this one game in the ScummVM?

Sincerely, thank you very much and I hope that somebody listens to my plea by a game that never had to be forgotten.


P.D. I know that it is possible to be played this game with the Dos-Box, but the PSP does not have DOS-BOX.

P.D. Sorry for my terrible english.
User avatar
eriktorbjorn
ScummVM Developer
Posts: 3525
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:39 am

Re: The Best Game that time forgot

Post by eriktorbjorn »

Alexander22 wrote: Nobody remember it...
I have both The Case of the Serrated Scalpel and The Case of the Rose Tattoo, so it's safe to say that I remember them.
Alexander22 wrote:I believe that if the programmers have made work games like “The Legend of Kyrandia� or “Borken Sword�.
With The Legend of Kyrandia, I believe the FreeKyra project gave us a bit of a head start. With the Broken Sword games, it was even simpler: Revolution Software kindly provided us with the original source code.

With the Sherlock Holmes games, we don't have anything like that, as far as I know. Of course, some of the game engines in ScummVM are based on reverse-engineering only, and if someone were to appear with a working, or even semi-working, engine for them, then I'm sure it would be at least seriously considered.
clem
Posts: 2159
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:14 am

Post by clem »

also stealing bandwith by hotlinking pictures from other servers is a kinda no-no

if that server happens to be an abandonware site even more so I think?

clem
Alexander22
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:29 pm

Post by Alexander22 »

clem wrote:also stealing bandwith by hotlinking pictures from other servers is a kinda no-no

if that server happens to be an abandonware site even more so I think?

clem

The images have been extracted from Google, so I do not believe that I am a thief. :D :D

Greetings :!:
Tinhead Ned
Posts: 70
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2005 6:32 am

Post by Tinhead Ned »

Hey, yeah, those Sherlock Holmes games are awesome. 'Serrated Scalpel' was, like, the second point-and-click I ever got.
Mim
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2005 4:59 pm

Post by Mim »

I agree that Sherlock Holmes games belong among the best classic adventures and would be great addition to ScummVM. I played The Case of the Rose Tattoo in DOSBox recently - unfortunately after some time of playing sound always became corrupted.
Tinhead Ned
Posts: 70
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2005 6:32 am

Post by Tinhead Ned »

I play 'Rose Tattoo' with VDMSound, and it works perfectly.
Mim
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2005 4:59 pm

Post by Mim »

Tinhead Ned wrote:I play 'Rose Tattoo' with VDMSound, and it works perfectly.
But it is VESA game and with CRT monitors is screen refresh rate only 60 Hz - definitely not pleasant for eyes. VDMSound also does not work on other systems than Windows XP. (I doubt it will work on Vista, anybody tried it?)
User avatar
PsYcO
Got 2 warnings
Posts: 511
Joined: Sun Dec 24, 2006 9:27 pm
Location: UK, Enfield
Contact:

Re: The Best Game that time forgot

Post by PsYcO »

i cant believe a scummvm dev didn't 'av a go at 'im for this one
Alexander22 wrote:I want to know why the ScummVM programmers have forgot the best game all time: "Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes - The Case of Serrated Scalpel"
Alexander22
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:29 pm

Post by Alexander22 »

I want to give thanks to all people for the interest deposited in this game.

Hopefully that the programmers of the Scummvm, they know this game and they understand that this Sherlock Holmes is classic an essential one, that incomprehensibly has not compatibility with the Scummvm sistem emulation.

I want to enjoy this fatastic game soon, in our PSP sistem, because a think that a part of all we wishes to incarnate the fight of sherlock Holmes against JAck The Ripper, in an incredible adventure of mystery and terror.


Greetings and please, you must speak to everybody on this one possible and fantastic project!!


P.D. Sorry again for my terrible English :oops: :oops:
User avatar
eriktorbjorn
ScummVM Developer
Posts: 3525
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:39 am

Post by eriktorbjorn »

Alexander22 wrote: I want to enjoy this fatastic game soon, in our PSP sistem, because a think that a part of all we wishes to incarnate the fight of sherlock Holmes against JAck The Ripper, in an incredible adventure of mystery and terror.
It's not that simple. ScummVM is not an emulator in the sense that DOSbox is one. Rather, it's a collection of individual game engines: one for SCUMM games (Monkey Island, etc), one for AGOS games (Simon the Sorcerer, etc) and so on.

While the game engines do have some conceptual similarities, the only thing they share is a common infrastructure for graphics, sound, etc. Each engine is thousands, or even tens of thousands, of lines of code. In other words, they're a lot of work.

It may look like a lot of new engines have been added lately, and in a way I suppose they have. But we have never been in a position where we can pick and choose the games to support. I know of the Sherlock Holmes games, but I don't have the necessary knowledge to reverse-engineer the game engine. It's possible that someone will appear, out of the blue, with the source code or a working game engine, of course. There's no way to predict that. But it's just as possible that it will never happen.
cappuchok
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:54 am

Post by cappuchok »

I just took a quick look around at MobyGames to get some clues as to where the developers have gone and who might own the rights to the game these days.

FWIW, the developer who designed this game, RJ Berg, is working at LucasArts now. Contacting him might be a good place to start.
Also, the company (Mythos Games, the original developers behind the XCom series) seems to have changed their name to "CoDo Games" (http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com/). Since they're still around, they might have retained the rights to the Sherlock Holmes games as well. So it might also be useful to ask them.
Mim
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2005 4:59 pm

Post by Mim »

cappuchok wrote:FWIW, the developer who designed this game, RJ Berg, is working at LucasArts now. Contacting him might be a good place to start.
Also, the company (Mythos Games, the original developers behind the XCom series) seems to have changed their name to "CoDo Games" (http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com/). Since they're still around, they might have retained the rights to the Sherlock Holmes games as well. So it might also be useful to ask them.
Thanks for info, capppuchok. Eriktorbjorn, would you be willing to make some inquiries into this? I believe there is higher chance that they will reply to ScummVM developer than to some of users.
User avatar
eriktorbjorn
ScummVM Developer
Posts: 3525
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:39 am

Post by eriktorbjorn »

Mim wrote:Thanks for info, capppuchok. Eriktorbjorn, would you be willing to make some inquiries into this? I believe there is higher chance that they will reply to ScummVM developer than to some of users.
I have no experience of such negotiations.
User avatar
john_doe
ScummVM Developer
Posts: 117
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2005 8:25 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Post by john_doe »

Nice to have some possible contacts.
I've been working on this on and off over the last year or so, recently more off due to some other projects.
I can read the LIB files and decompress data and even play the cutscenes, which are almost completely independant of the interactive game code, though.
Some could also find out who has the rights to the source code. If EA still has it, things look pretty bad, though.
Post Reply