Good afternoon people. I know it's been a long time since you have heard from me, and you may be wondering why I called you hear today. I have heard rumors the project is dead, and I would like to assure everyone that's not so. We have been working very hard lately, and many bugfixes have been made to various games. In fact, we are almost ready for another release.... but we are waiting for a resolution to our Legal Drama before that happens. So, what is happening on the legal front? Well, our erstwhile project leader (James 'Ender' Brown) has had many phone conferences with LucasArts, and we should shortly be announcing an agreement that will make both parties happy. I would like to thank LEC for being open to helping keep the project alive, instead of just forcing us to shut down. Hopefully within the next week, news of our future will be announced. Until then, keep donating, and keep telling everyone how much you love ScummVM. Remember, it's not people saying 'LucasArts SUX' that will convince them to keep helping the project... it's people saying 'ScummVM Rules' that will!
There are three ScummVM related [mailing lists](https://lists.scummvm.org/). You can only send emails to scummvm-devel, the rest are for automated notifications only.
Ladies, Gentleman, Three headed monkeys, and alien mindbenders... lend me your ears. Firstly, an update on our legal negotiations with LucasArts. We are hopefully very close to finalising our arrangement, and sometime in the next week hope to make an announcement regarding this. Of course, we had hoped to make an announcement a good month ago. Unfortunatly things are rather busy at LucasArts, so it has taken a while to talk to the relevant people. On another note, I would like to address something that comes up at least once a week. No, ScummVM is not currently in any kind of position to start supporting OTHER non-SCUMM games. The inclusion of Simon support aside, the current team has far too much on their hands trying to complete support for existing LucasArts classic adventures. Although we may add support for other games in the future, we do not currently plan on it... and any requests to do so will be promply ignored. Unless it is accompanied by a donation of money over $2,000. Meanwhile, we would suggest asking for help at the wonderful [VOGONS](http://vogons.zetafleet.com/) (Very Old Games on New Systems) site if you require help with other games on modern operating systems. Anyway, thats all for the moment. Donations have been rather nonexistant lately, so if you havn't already, please consider using the PayPal button under the menu on the left... and send us some cash. Currently we are using donations for legal costs, and purchasing software (such as a copy or three of [IDA Pro](http://www.datarescue.com/), as well as games some of our developers may not already have).
At 16:57 (GMT), on September 17th... I - ScummVM - will officially be a year old! Unfortunatly, nobody told me when my birthday was, they told me I was an orphan! But I'm going to try and throw a party anyway. So everyone is invited to attend my IRC channel, #scummvm, on irc.freenode.net! If your someone like famous, or you like me, or whatever, and you want to pop in and say 'Hi!' to me and my [parents](http://www.scummvm.org/contact.php)... come on by! Or if you just want to send me a birthday card, or RSVP for the party, go over to the Contact page and e-mail Endy or someone. Or post in my new shiny [Birthday Forum](https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=210596). We should be around pretty much all day. If you want to actually meet a ScummVM developer in real life, and buy him (I don't have a mummy! Wahh!) a beer or something.... you can always drop a post in the [Birthday Forum](https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=210596) and see if theres anyone else in your area. I'm sure they would appretiate it! Oh, and I lost a small, fleece sweater with three blue roses on it. If you see it, please commit it to CVS for me!
And now, for our semi-annual news update! The legal situation is still pending, as we are waiting on a response from LucasArts to our last e-mail. Progress-wise, people following the daily build will have noticed the new in-game GUI we have implemented. It's still very much a work in progress, so expect odd things to happen. Some of our wonderful developers are currently working on improving compatibility with The Dig and Full Throttle, as it seems we might even get one of these completable by the time the legal situation is resolved and we can get our next release out. Meanwhile, the CVS tree and daily builds are somewhat in an experimental form. On to other matters, we are seeking mercenaries to kidnap two people so we can torture them into revealing the two current 'problem areas' in ScummVM. We need the person who primarily extended iMUSE for Sam and Max Hit The Road. Pretty much every remaining bug with ScummVMs support of that game is related to the iMUSE system, so if anybody can 'acquire' a person or any information on this subsystem, please contact [Ender](mailto:scummvm@enderboi.com) to arrange discrete delivery of the... package. Secondly, we require [Vince Lee](http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,1526/) for questioning over the INSANE cutscene engine used in games such as Full Throttle. Our lack of information on this system has left us at a dead-end as far as progress in this game goes. If you can acquire this person, or any information regarding INSANE, you will be well rewarded. Anonymity will be honored, if the 'acquiree' desires it. As an alternative, we can negotiate a deal if someone wishes to raid LucasArts HQ and persuade it's occupants to part with source or information regarding this two items. Our own attempts as infiltration of this facility have failed, due to some mysterious person called "Management". Seriously, if anybody does have any information on these two headaches for us, please get in touch with [Ender](mailto:scummvm@enderboi.com). If you've previously worked at LucasArts and wish to help anonymously, we'll respect that. I wouldn't be too afraid about giving assistance, as our own negotiations have revealed they are quite willing to let us exist, they are just not willing ('at the moment') to share any actual information or source. Thanks for playing, and remember - "never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game"!
A message was recently posted to the scummvm development list detailing the current status of ScummVM, including things such as details on where we are heading for our next release, and an update on the legal situation. Here's a link to the [State of the SCUMM e-mail](http://www.scummvm.org/status.php)