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).
Twenty years ago today, on Tue Oct 9 16:30:12 2001, Ludvig Strigeus pushed the initial revision of the ScummVM code, which was version 0.0.1 of the project. Time flew quickly and, fast-forward to the present day, we are proudly releasing ScummVM 2.5.0 “Twenty years ago today…” The [list of changes](https://downloads.scummvm.org/frs/scummvm/2.5.0/ReleaseNotes.html) is tremendous. First of all, this is the first release that supports 2.5D games (almost 3D), thanks to the merger with ResidualVM. With this release we announce support for _Grim Fandango_, _The Longest Journey_ and _Myst 3: Exile_. This is why we jumped straight to 2.5 in our versioning. Please note that only desktop platforms currently support these games and other platforms may or may not gain the support later depending on their capabilities. In addition to these 3 games and engines, we officially support 10 more new engines and subengines that add compatibility with the following games: * _Little Big Adventure_ * _Red Comrades 1: Save the Galaxy_ * _Red Comrades 2: For the Great Justice_ * _Transylvania_ * _Crimson Crown_ * _OO-Topos_ * [Glulx interactive fiction games](https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Glk/Glulxe) * _Private Eye_ * [AGS Games versions 2.5+](https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=AGS/Games) * _Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy_ * _The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time_ * _Crusader: No Remorse_ * _L-ZONE_ * _Spaceship Warlock_ We love localized game releases and multiple platform versions, thus with this release, we enhanced the support for _Lure of the Temptress_ Konami release, _Blue Force_ Spanish, _Ringworld_ Spanish, _Amazon: Guardians of Eden_ Spanish, _Mystery House_ French, Russian translations of Sierra AGI games, _Elvira 1_ Japanese PC-98, _Bargon Attack_ Russian, _Woodruff_ Russian, _Eye of the Beholder_ Japanese Sega-CD, _Legend of Kyrandia_ Hebrew, _Legend of Kyrandia 2_ Hebrew, _Legend of Kyrandia 3_ Simplified Chinese, _Inherit the Earth_ PC-98 Japanese, _Gabriel Knight 1_ Macintosh, _Xeen_ Russian to name but a few. Notably, Macintosh b/w versions of _Loom_ and _Indy 3_ are now also supported. Besides the new games and game versions, ScummVM 2.5.0 brings many notable improvements and new features. We have completed a major rework of the GUI: We now support Unicode characters everywhere. The GUI also adapts to high resolutions used in HiDPI screens. The Nintendo DS port has been significantly rewritten. We added GOG and Steam achievements to a large number of Wintermute games and enabled KeyMapper in more games. Thanks to the work of one of our GSoC students, we have now added an option for text-to-speech to the games _Sfinx_,_Soltys_ and _The Griffon Legend_. You may find all of this goodness available to a number of platforms on [our downloads page](https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/), or let the autoupdater kick in on Macintosh and Windows. We wish you great adventuring, happy puzzle-solving and exciting journeys to RPG worlds, and hope to see you around in the coming years. And by the way, GOG.com is running [a special promo](https://www.gog.com/news/special_event_bscummvm_20th_anniversaryb?pp=22d200f8670dbdb3e253a90eee5098477c95c23d) tied to the release and our anniversary, where you can buy many ScummVM-supported games at a discount.
After more than [10 years of development](https://www.alexbevi.com/blog/2021/05/19/scummvm-asylum-engine/), the ScummVM Team is pleased to announce support for the psychological-horror adventure game *Sanitarium*. Grab your CD version or a digital release and immerse yourself in a story full of nightmares and mysteries. If you don't own the game we have a [demo](/frs/demos/asylum/asylum-demo.zip) available. You will need the latest [daily build](/downloads/#daily). As always, please submit the bug reports to our [issue tracker](https://bugs.scummvm.org/).
