After some work, the 256 color CD Talkie version of Loom is completable! With this done, we are starting to gear up for a 0.2.0 release. To help us with this, we ask you - our game players - to take the latest Daily Builds and CVS snapshots and play through your favorite games! We need to make sure that the following games are completable with no major playability bugs (eg, crashes, freezes, etc - minor issues such as sound syncro do not count): *Loom CD *Monkey Island 1 (CD) *Monkey Island 2 *Indy 4: Fate of atlantis *Sam and Max *Day of the Tentacle Thanks a lot, and we hope everything will work just fine so we can finally get a new release out the door! Also, by popular demand, 0.2.0 will include a new 'auto-save' feature to ensure you'll never lose hours of hard work because you forgot to save and suddenly found a bug!
Thanks to several people, we have confirmed that DOTT, Sam and Max and LoomCD are all completable with no 'major' bugs in the current code. On the other hand, several serious bugs with MI2 and Indy4 have been found, so the 0.2.0 release may take slightly longer than expected. To the coders out there, feel free to browse the bug list and take a shot at committing fixes for them. At the moment there is only one person regually working on ScummVM, so things are slow.
The 0.2.0 release has been put off for a while as the ScummVM engine is again undergoing some reorganisation. However, as an intresting bit of trivia, the 0.2.0 release will also include support for a non-SCUMM game! Simon The Sorcerer. So share and enjoy the latest CVS folks. Also some of you may have noticed a PayPal button at the bottom of the navigation bar. If you've enjoyed ScummVM please donate some money to help us buy software to help development. Thanks!
Yes, we are still alive. Unfortunately far from being ready for 0.2.0, several people have raised a large number of critical bugs we are working through. Stick with us, we'll get their eventually! Oh, and by the way.. if anyone knows the location of Sean Clark or any other person who scripted Sam and Max, please kidnap them and force them to explain an annoying script race in the Mystery Vortex which has kept several of us awake for the last 48 hours. Thanks, and enjoy ScummVM :)
The ScummVM team is still working hard on fixing all the remaining bugs so we can release our next milestone (0.2.0). In the meantime, here is some news regarding the project. Of particular interest may be the fact that Zak McKracken 256 (the enhanced graphics fmTowns version) will be officially supported in 0.2.0, and can currently be completed with only two major bugs in the current CVS. Also, we currently have someone working on a GBA port. This has been a popular request, and hopefully will be ready in time for 0.3.0. You can see proof of it's existence in [this development screenshot](http://www.bbrox.org/scummadv_by_ph0x_0427c.jpg). The port is currently too early to be placed in CVS, so just hang tight :) In other port news, LyonHrt has compiled an old CVS build of ScummVM for the Dreamcast, maintained by our team member Marcus Comstedt. They can be found listed below. Please note that as these are old builds they are not officially supported by the ScummVM team. Comments on this port should be posted on the ConsoleVision Dreamcast forum
After much waiting, ScummVM 0.2.0 has been released! So head over to the downloads page and grab it for your favorite platform. Currently we have downloads for i386 Debian Woody, Windows, Dreamcast, MacOSX, Familiar/Intimate, and Windows CE. Over the next few days we will also be adding downloads for MorphOS, RPMs, and maybe a BeOS download. Besides many major fixes, ScummVM now supports several new games, such as the FmTowns 256 color version of Zak McKracken, the CD version of Loom, and (strangely enough) Simon the Sorcerer! Several games supported in 0.1.0 are now completable in 0.2.0, such as Sam and Max. ScummVM release 0.2.0 also includes several new platforms, better support for different CPU architectures and endians, many more commandline options and experimental (e.g., do not report bugs on it!) support for Full Throttle, The Dig, the VGA version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the VGA version of Monkey Island (floppy).! So don't delay. Download it now, and if you really like it, click that little paypal button under the menu to donate money to help the ScummVM team buy tools and software to continue this project.
The Windows daily builds don't contain any virus's, some anti-virus scanner like [AntiVir](http://www.free-av.com) are falsely reporting the recent xbox emulator trojan (TR/XBoxEmu.2) in all self extracting files created by [SFX Maker](http://www.sfxmaker.cjb.net/) Work on ScummVM has been proceeding very slowly of late, as the main devteam is quite busy on other matters. We are aware of quite a few issues in Zak256 and some very serious ones in Simon that were found for 0.2.0, and plan to do an interim release (0.2.1) as soon as they are fixed. We are of course looking for more developers willing to help out, as there is only currently one person working on the game interpreter itself (although several are working on more specialized parts of the engine). We are also aware of a GP32 port in progress, and urge anyone who knows the developer to get him to contact [Ender](mailto:scummvm@enderboi.com). Besides the fact we are quite interested in his work, and wish to invite him to join the team... we are quite peeved he has released binaries and there appears to be no way to contact him for the source code to his port (as is required by the GPL license ScummVM uses)! Until the next update... **I can't pick that up! No really! Read my lips.. I... Can't... Pick... That... Up!**
Not much to report really, but don't worry, we are far from dead. Most of the ScummVM team is very busy with real-life school and work at the moment, but we are hoping the worst will be over very soon and we can get down to crunching some more bugs and releasing a new version! Here is a very rough draft of what we are considering to be ScummVM milestones: *0.2.5: All supported games next to bugless *0.3.0: The Dig and MI1 VGA Floppy supported *0.4.0: Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade supported, more bugfixes *0.5.0: Full Throttle supported, basic CMI and Maniac Mansion support *0.6.0: More work on CMI, MM and further bugfixes *0.7.0: Maniac Mansion completable, Zak McCracken and Loom16 playable *0.8.0: Zak McCracken and Loom16 completable *0.9.0: Bugfixes and CMI completable *1.0.0: The end of the beginning Obviously this is a very rough outline, and is subject to change if we suddenly make a break-through in a game. But this is just to give people a basic idea of where we are going. CMI support will be the hardest, as it is quite drastically different compared to the versions of SCUMM we have been dealing with to this point. Happy adventuring!
**Update: The text of the letter, and the teams response, can be found [in the scummvm-devel list archives](https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=837277&forum_id=7223)** Today was a milestone for the ScummVM project, as we finally received the long-awaited for e-mail from LucasArts Legal regarding the project. Thankfully, they do not yet appear to have a valid complaint. Their message requesting the removal of the site is based on the presumption that we are distributing LucasArts own engine on this site. Of course, ScummVM is a fully original work based equally on reverse engineering and original decoding work by many different people in the community, so this request doesn't really affect us. We're safe for the moment, and will continue to work on bringing the wonderful classics of the LucasArts company to your computing devices for, hopefully, a long time to come!
Well people, we are still alive so far. We are currently talking to LucasArts to see if we can negotiate a deal. To be honest, while we hope it is possible, we are dubious that the deal LucasArts may provide can give us certain freedoms we need to develop. One of the biggest fears of most companies is the GPL (General Public License). Some companies feel this gives users far too much latitude in use of their software. Unfortunately, if LEC feels the same way, we may have to reject their offer. It is close on impossible to relicense GPLed software, as it would mean getting permission from anyone who ever wrote even one line of code included in ScummVM. So far most of our communication has been off-the-record and fairly vague, but be assured we haven't vanished, and we'll give you the latest news as it happens! Also, thanks to people donating. We are currently at a little over $100, which is tagged to be spent on both buying versions of games for testing, and also saving up to our target of $300 to purchase a copy of IDA Pro, arguably the best disassembler on earth. Keep donating :)
