Is there a way to make other pc games work with Scumm?

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Wazburg
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Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 3:13 pm

Is there a way to make other pc games work with Scumm?

Post by Wazburg »

I have a few other pc games that are point and click me and my sister used to play as kids and i wonder if theres a way to get them to work on scummvm.. Games such as Nancy Drew, Barbie Detective 1,2 Barbie Beauty styler ;D some of them are real simple games so it wouldent take me to much space
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eriktorbjorn
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Re: Is there a way to make other pc games work with Scumm?

Post by eriktorbjorn »

Wazburg wrote:Games such as Nancy Drew, Barbie Detective 1,2 Barbie Beauty styler ;D some of them are real simple games so it wouldent take me to much space
Probably not; at least not at this time. ScummVM doesn't emulate a PC. Instead it's a collection of game engines, that is it replaces the original executable and plays the game's data files. This works because in the supported games much - often all - of the actual game logic is encoded in the data files, not the executable itself. While the games may look similar on the outside, they can work completely different on the inside, so unless it's on the compatibility list or in the list of in-progress engines on the game engines page, it's almost certainly not even close to working. (Note that "in progress" does not necessarily mean it's being actively worked on at the moment. Just that someone made a start.)

This is quite different to how, say, DOSBox does things. DOSBox emulates an entire computer, running DOS. In theory, it should be able to run any DOS program regardless of whether or not its developers have even heard of it before. (In reality I don't think they're quite there yet, but getting closer.)

Both approaches have their advantages. DOSBox runs a very wide range of DOS programs, regardless of genre, but often needs a reasonably powerful computer to do so. ScummVM runs a much smaller range of games, on a wider range of platforms, and is not necessarily restricted to the DOS versions.
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garrythefish
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Re: Is there a way to make other pc games work with Scumm?

Post by garrythefish »

Wazburg wrote:I have a few other pc games that are point and click me and my sister used to play as kids and i wonder if theres a way to get them to work on scummvm.. Games such as Nancy Drew, Barbie Detective 1,2 Barbie Beauty styler ;D some of them are real simple games so it wouldent take me to much space
You can always become a ScummVM developer if you've got the proper skills. :P

And if its 2.5D/3D games you want to work on, Residual (http://residual.sourceforge.net/) could be your natural choice.

Cheers :)
fingolfin
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Post by fingolfin »

This question is answered by our FAQ: http://www.scummvm.org/faq/#question.add-new-games
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