| Will SCUMMVM support... |
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ScottT
ScummVM Developer

Joined: 28 Nov 2008
Posts: 27
Location: .au |
quote: Originally posted by md5 As always, the largest chunk of work when adding a game is not the game's resources (i.e. backgrounds, sprites, sounds etc), but the actual game logic itself
... which would appear to be fairly hard-coded into the game.
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Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:13 am |
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wisefire
Joined: 13 Feb 2010
Posts: 5
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quote: Originally posted by ScottT quote: Originally posted by md5 As always, the largest chunk of work when adding a game is not the game's resources (i.e. backgrounds, sprites, sounds etc), but the actual game logic itself
... which would appear to be fairly hard-coded into the game.
which means that there is almost no chance of getting support for it in scumm, i would imagine.
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Fri Feb 26, 2010 4:12 pm |
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clone2727
ScummVM Team Member

Joined: 09 Jun 2006
Posts: 1412
Location: NJ, USA |
quote: Originally posted by wisefire quote: Originally posted by ScottT quote: Originally posted by md5 As always, the largest chunk of work when adding a game is not the game's resources (i.e. backgrounds, sprites, sounds etc), but the actual game logic itself
... which would appear to be fairly hard-coded into the game.
which means that there is almost no chance of getting support for it in scumm, i would imagine.
Not necessarily. You would "just" need to find someone dedicated and willing enough to work on it as it's a very arduous task.
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Fri Feb 26, 2010 4:37 pm |
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bobdevis

Joined: 16 Jan 2009
Posts: 563
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quote: Originally posted by clone2727 Not necessarily. You would "just" need to find someone dedicated and willing enough to work on it as it's a very arduous task.
You mean "reverse engineer the whole thing from play experience", right?
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Fri Feb 26, 2010 4:49 pm |
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clone2727
ScummVM Team Member

Joined: 09 Jun 2006
Posts: 1412
Location: NJ, USA |
quote: Originally posted by bobdevis quote: Originally posted by clone2727 Not necessarily. You would "just" need to find someone dedicated and willing enough to work on it as it's a very arduous task.
You mean "reverse engineer the whole thing from play experience", right?
No.
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Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:02 pm |
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KuroShiro
Joined: 15 May 2008
Posts: 437
Location: Miyazaki, Japan |
quote: Originally posted by bobdevis quote: Originally posted by clone2727 Not necessarily. You would "just" need to find someone dedicated and willing enough to work on it as it's a very arduous task.
You mean "reverse engineer the whole thing from play experience", right?
I think he means "reverse engineer the whole thing from decompiling it, graphing out and studying all the functions/opcodes, and rebuilding them from scratch".
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Fri Feb 26, 2010 11:41 pm |
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wisefire
Joined: 13 Feb 2010
Posts: 5
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quote: Originally posted by KuroShiro quote: Originally posted by bobdevis quote: Originally posted by clone2727 Not necessarily. You would "just" need to find someone dedicated and willing enough to work on it as it's a very arduous task.
You mean "reverse engineer the whole thing from play experience", right?
I think he means "reverse engineer the whole thing from decompiling it, graphing out and studying all the functions/opcodes, and rebuilding them from scratch".
if you show me how, i'll do it 
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Sat Feb 27, 2010 1:35 am |
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LordHoto
ScummVM Developer

Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 863
Location: Germany |
quote: Originally posted by KuroShiro
I think he means "reverse engineer the whole thing from decompiling it, graphing out and studying all the functions/opcodes, and rebuilding them from scratch".
I guess disassembling rather than decompiling though ;-).
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Sat Feb 27, 2010 2:07 am |
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bobdevis

Joined: 16 Jan 2009
Posts: 563
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Sorry for continuing off-topic, but for me this is kind of an interesting question.
If you rewrite the logic yourself, it may take longer but you are sure you CAN finish. The process may be less challenging but also a lot less frustrating. The result is also cleaner and easier to maintain and fix.
If you go for disassembly there is no guarantee of anything because the thing may be just too complex to figure out.
Giving up after months of frustrating work is not a nice prospect.
Or lat least, so it seems to me. I am by no means an assembly expert, so maybe I am just not knowledgeable enough.
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Sat Feb 27, 2010 3:27 am |
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KuroShiro
Joined: 15 May 2008
Posts: 437
Location: Miyazaki, Japan |
quote: Originally posted by LordHoto quote: Originally posted by KuroShiro
I think he means "reverse engineer the whole thing from decompiling it, graphing out and studying all the functions/opcodes, and rebuilding them from scratch".
I guess disassembling rather than decompiling though .
Indeed. Been a while since I've done any programming.
And I would imagine that trying to reprogram a game engine just based on gameplay experience, with no knowledge of the engine internals (especially one with a lot of hard-coded logic) would border on impossible.
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Sat Feb 27, 2010 3:37 am |
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fingolfin
Joined: 21 Sep 2005
Posts: 1466
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It is possible, though quite difficult; and you must be very, very, *very* precise and controlled to make sure you don't miss any details etc. And even then it's quite likely that you missed some little nuance, which can hurt the overall thing badly, in ways you may not have forseen.
Anyway, the Exult project started out, AFAIK, mostly based on this approach.
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Sat Feb 27, 2010 11:55 am |
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MeddlingMonk

Joined: 21 Jan 2009
Posts: 132
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quote: Originally posted by fingolfin Anyway, the Exult project started out, AFAIK, mostly based on this approach.
Considering how approximate the gameplay of Exult was in the early days, you're probably right. I think actually working out usecode came much, much later on.
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Sat Feb 27, 2010 5:31 pm |
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fingolfin
Joined: 21 Sep 2005
Posts: 1466
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Usecode is only part of the story for Exult. It did support Usecode early on, but many things, e.g. the combat system, involve many parameters and behaviors which are *not* encoded into usecode scripts. I.e., they were hard coded.
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Sat Feb 27, 2010 6:39 pm |
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