Hello world, it is time for us to release the next version of ScummVM. Thus, we really need your help with testing the stable builds before the upcoming release, so we ensure better quality. Please, pay your special attention to the following new titles: * <i>Blazing Dragons</i> * <i>Eye of the Beholder - Sega CD version</i> * <i>Griffon Legend</i> * <i>Interactive Fiction games</i> * <i>Operation Stealth</i> * <i>Police Quest: SWAT</i> * <i>Prince and the Coward, English translation</i> * <i>Ultima IV - Quest of the Avatar</i> * <i>Ultima VI - The False Prophet</i> * <i>Ultima VIII - Pagan</i> We would also like you to play through another Sierra game: <i>Police Quest: SWAT</i>. Train to be a member of the SWAT team, and embark into dangerous missions to save civilian lives. This has been recently promoted for testing, so its call for testing has been included in the announcement for the upcoming release. These games need to be tested with [stable builds](https://buildbot.scummvm.org/#/snapshots), not development ones. And report any bugs or oddities on [our issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/). We also need your help to update the ScummVM translations for this release. You can see the status of the translations, and work on them on our [translations website](https://translations.scummvm.org/projects/scummvm/scummvm/). To log-in to the web site, you can either use your GitHub or Facebook account if you have one or create an account specific for this web site. Regular contributors can save changes to the translations but new contributors will only be able to make suggestions and vote on the suggestions. However we are looking for new regular contributors for some languages, so if you do not currently have full access and would like to get it, please [contact us](https://www.scummvm.org/contact/). Also, a few of our past contributors may have lost their full access a few months ago when we updated our permission settings. If you are one of them please contact us to see your full access restored. Good luck with your playtesting, and let’s release version 2.2.0 at the end of September!
 The next version of ScummVM will support [Discord](https://discord.gg/4cDsMNtcpG) rich presence, so you can show off to all your friends that you're playing ScummVM <i>and</i> the exact game you're playing. But to make the most of this feature, we need game icons. If you ever wanted to contribute to ScummVM but couldn't find anywhere to apply your art/design skills, now’s your chance! Check out the new [Game Icons repository](https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm-icons/) for more details on how you can help.
Once upon a time in the past - around the year 1994 - a software company called Adeline Software International released a game titled “Little Big Adventure” or “Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure”. This game, a classic pseudo-3D action adventure game with an epic story set on a fantastic planet, has now entered the testing stage in ScummVM. Please, note that a few features of the original game are not implemented yet. However, we also added a few features which are new for the game. Features not available yet and known issues: * The holomap is not yet available * Changing the rendering details is not supported yet * The credits sequence has a few rendering bugs New features: * An option to disable wall collision damage * Improved UI navigation This was all made possible by the people behind the [TwinEngine](https://github.com/xesf/twin-e) project and the LBA community. Please test the game with the latest [development build](https://buildbot.scummvm.org/#/snapshots) and report any issues you find on our [bug tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/).
In 2019, Andrei Prykhodko (whiterandrek), a GSoC student, was working on support for the Red Comrades game series (Russian: Петька и Василий Иванович). Red Comrades is a 2D adventure game played from a third-person perspective. The game's protagonists are from Dmitri Furmanov's 1923 novel Chapaev: historical Russian military figure Vasiliy Chapayev, his aide Petka, and the machine gunner, Anka. After a long time in development, the ScummVM team is happy to announce support for the first two games in the series: _Red Comrades 1: Save the Galaxy_ (Russian: _Петька и Василий Иванович спасают галактику_) and _Red Comrades 2: For the Great Justice_ (Russian: _Петька и Василий Иванович 2: Судный день_). So break out your copies of the games and give them a try! Unfortunately, only the original Russian Windows versions are supported. The English versions for iOS and Android use a completely different engine. If you don’t own a copy, you can get the demo from our [demos section](https://www.scummvm.org/demos/). You will need a [daily development build](https://buildbot.scummvm.org/#/snapshots). As always, please submit the bug reports to our [issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/).
It's time to announce testing for a further two Glk subengines. The first is the Glulx interpreter, for which there are many free games available at [the IF-Archive](https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXgamesXglulx.html). The second is the Comprehend engine games developed by Polarware. Here's where things get a bit more complicated. At the moment, only the first three Comprehend games are ready for testing - Transylvania, Crimson Crown, and OO-Topos. These three are also freely available at [the IF-Archive](https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/games/pc/penguin/). There is also, however, a re-release of Transylvania also available for free from the Graphics Magician website which isn't yet supported. As for the other Comprehend games, Talisman will likely be supported in the future, but it requires significant further work. The other remaining games like Transylvania III use a completely different engine, so will remain out of scope for the foreseeable future. So if any of you are interested, try downloading the relevant games and give them a try. You will need a [daily development build](https://buildbot.scummvm.org/#/snapshots). As always, please submit the bug reports to our [issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/).
We are thrilled to announce that the ScummVM project was once again accepted for Google Summer of Code. This is always an exciting part of the year for us and this year is no different. For 2021 the GSoC program has been revamped by Google to be focused on smaller tasks and eligibility criteria for the students were relaxed. With this in mind, our team has several exciting ideas for prospective applicants to explore, all of which can be found on our [ideas page](https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Summer_of_Code/GSoC_Ideas_2021). Please review the [information we expect in your application](https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=GSoC_Application) before submitting it. You can learn more about the GSoC program and the tasks our cohorts contributed to in previous years in our [Google Summer of Code miniportal](https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Summer_of_Code). So join us in our [Discord server](https://discord.gg/4cDsMNtcpG) and follow the #scummvm-gsoc channel where you can engage with our mentors and the rest of the team. We are all excited to be part of this program, and to see your applications!
Exciting news! Thanks to the tremendous effort of Damiano Gerli and the generosity of original game authors, Marco Caprelli, Paolo Costabel, Massimo Magnasciutti and producer Bruno Boz, we are happy to announce the freeware release of the game_Nippon Safes Inc._. This is a small but fun game created in 1992 by the small Italian studio DYNABYTE divisione EUCLIDEA s.r.l. You can read about the game and the history of Dynabyte in more detail on Damiano’s Blog, [the Genesis Temple](https://genesistemple.com/the-big-italian-adventure-the-history-of-dynabyte-software). Both DOS and Amiga versions have been declared freeware, with permission to modify the files, which makes it possible to disable the manual protection. Nevertheless, we are distributing scanned copies of the manual as well. You can grab your copies from our [games page](/games). The game itself has been supported since ScummVM 0.10.0, which was released in 2007. Have fun and enjoy another great freeware point-and-click adventure! PS. If you happen to own boxes of _The Big Red Adventure_ and _Tequila & Boom Boom_ titles from the same developer and have the ability to provide high-res scans of those, please contact sev.
We are happy to announce that _Private Eye_ by Brooklyn Multimedia is now ready for public testing. Play Phillip Marlowe, a hard-boiled private eye, as he attempts to solve a murder mystery in Los Angeles in the 1940s. Released in 1996, this game is a rare gem with cel animation technique and professional voice acting. Based on Raymond Chandler's work, the game plays like an interactive movie where you can choose which version of the story to play: one is faithful to the book while the other has an alternate ending. Only the US release for Windows is supported at the moment. You will need a [daily development build](https://buildbot.scummvm.org/#/snapshots). As always, please submit the bug reports to our [issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/).
We're finally ready to unleash the motherlode onto the public for testing. The AGS engine has had many freeware games released over the years, as well as quite a few commercial games as well. Keep in mind that, like the stand-alone AGS interpreter the engine is derived from, only AGS games from 2.5 onwards are supported. So if any of you are interested, try downloading some freeware games from [The AGS website](https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/). You will need a [daily development build](https://buildbot.scummvm.org/#/snapshots). As always, please submit the bug reports to our [issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/). It would also be helpful to let us know in the [#engine-ags Discord channel](https://discord.gg/eQYERyBc) which games you finish testing.
 Yesterday, Google announced the list of students accepted for this new edition of the [Google Summer of Code](https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/). We are very proud to welcome 6 students this year who will be working on various parts of the project during the upcoming months. * Aashwin Vaish (aka av_dx) will improve the GUI by adding a graphical interface for game library management, so that games are displayed with cover art thumbnails, grouping options and various filtering fields * a-yyg (aka a/) will be working on writing a new engine for Faery Tale Adventure II, based on original sources kindly provided by The Dreamers Guild * Crane yang (aka sheep) will join the effort to improve the current Director engine * Divyam Ahuja (aka Hikigaya) will be working on finishing the implementation of some engines which are currently stalled, with a priority on MacVenture and Avalanche engines * Dylan Servilla (aka djsrv) will also work on the Director engine, continuing his previous GSoC work and aiming to reach Director 2-4 support * taylorzhancher (twan) will focus on adding Text To Speech functionality to various games to improve the gaming experience of people having troubles reading texts on screen We haven't had the opportunity to support and mentor 6 GSoC students since 2008. So, let's celebrate and give a particularly warm welcome to the 2021 GSoC students!
