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!
From 1940 to 2099, _Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy_ is now ready for public testing. Take the role of private investigator Joshua Reev in this cyberpunk-themed adventure released in 1998 by Trecision, featuring pre-rendered environments and 3D software rendering. Uncover the conspiracy, and all the bugs! Thanks to the original developers for providing us the source code, and to SupSuper, Strangerke, bluegr and madmoose for porting it to ScummVM. All Windows versions of the game are supported, as well as original savegames, check the [wiki](https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Nightlong:_Union_City_Conspiracy) for required datafiles. If you don't own the game we have [demos](https://www.scummvm.org/demos/) available. To test you will need the [latest daily build](https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/#daily) of ScummVM. As always, please submit the bug reports to our [issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/).
Prepare for a quest that spans more than 1200 years and 7 astounding worlds. The epic sequel to _The Journeyman Project_, _The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time_ is now fully supported by ScummVM. After a number of years in development by clone2727, and a few more years maturing on a shelf, the game is finally ready for public testing. Please help us with this journey. Take your CDs (or [GOG.com digital release](https://www.gog.com/game/journeyman_project_2?pp=22d200f8670dbdb3e253a90eee5098477c95c23d)), copy over [the necessary files](https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=The_Journeyman_Project_2:_Buried_in_Time) and fly, fly. You will need the [latest daily build](https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/#daily) of ScummVM. If you encounter any hiccups during your quest, please file them on our [issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/).
Last year we [added support](https://www.scummvm.org/news/20200521/) for games from the Ultima series including [Ultima 8](https://www.scummvm.org/news/20200524/).Starting from the Ultima 8 engine, Origin Systems also created two other games in a quite different style: _Crusader: No Remorse_ and _Crusader: No Regret_. We are happy to announce the first of these (Crusader: No Remorse) is now ready for testing in ScummVM.If you have a copy of this game and are ready to take on the World Economic Consortium, grab the [latest daily build](https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/#daily) of ScummVM.If you see any issues, please file them in the [issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/).
After 5 years of active development, we are glad to finally announce the first MacroMind/Macromedia Director-based games to be supported. Iskrich, a GSoC student, laid down the engine’s first lines of code, based on the initial reverse engineering efforts of fuzzie, which she wrote in Python as part of the _continuity_ project. Then, the work was continued by sev in 2017 when Lingo compiler development was started and stevenhoefel started adding Director 5-related code. In 2018, there was practically no development, but in 2019, moralrecordings made some advancements for Director 4. Finally, in 2020 and 2021, there was a big chunk of development, first by npjg and djsrv, then by sheep and djsrv, while rvanlaar set up a continuous integration buildbot for the project. Long story short, after 3738 commits, we are now announcing support for Director 2-based titles such as _Spaceship Warlock_. Selected Director 3-based titles may work, and in particular, we support _L-ZONE_. Grab your CDs and give these titles a go. We are also actively collecting info on any Director-based (and Shockwave) titles that we catalogue on [our Wiki](https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Director/Games), so, please, help us with this task. We are actively working on deepening Director 3 compatibility, particularly the original _Journeyman Project_ and advancing with Director 4 support, having _Meet MediaBand_ and _Chop Suey_ as our primary test targets. For running the games you will need the [latest daily build](https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/#daily) of ScummVM.And as usual, if you see any issues, please file them in the [issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/).
It has been almost a year since the last release of ScummVM. We have made a truly tremendous number of changes, which you can read about in the [NEWS.md file](https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/blob/branch-2-3/NEWS.md). We need your help to test this version! Besides the [list of games to test before the release](https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Release_Testing/2.3.0), the most notable things to test are: * UTF-32 support in the GUI, allowing for full Japanese and Korean translations. (Also, you are welcome to [help with translation into more languages](https://translations.scummvm.org/projects/scummvm/scummvm/)). * Support for HiDPI (aka Retina) displays in the GUI. No more fuzzy fonts. * A significant rewrite of the Nintendo DS port, bringing it up to date with the latest engines and features. * 3D engines formerly part of ResidualVM. Games like _Grim Fandango_, _The Longest Journey_ and _Myst III: Exile_ need a playthrough. * In total, 12 new engines and general changes to 24 more engines. For running the games you will need the [latest stable build](https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/#daily) of ScummVM. Then, load up some games and report issues in the [issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/) and playthrough progress on [this forum post](https://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16362) so we could keep track of the progress on [the Wiki](https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Release_Testing/2.3.0).
