If you're a Linux user, Happy Penguin are running a [series of polls](http://happypenguin.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=17) to determine the best games in a ton of categories. Go vote for your favourite emulators, what you think the most promising project is, et cetera... Hopefully some of those votes might even be for us :)
Over at the Linux Game Tome (http://happypenguin.org), ScummVM has been voted [Best Emulator](http://happypenguin.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=549). Thanks to anybody who voted for us. In other news, Curse of Monkey Island support is stabilizing. While there are still a number of small graphical glitches, currently we are down to two known gameplay-critical bugs and a number of other 'inconveniences' and cases of incorrect behavior. We hope to be able to announce Curse of Monkey Island completable very soon. A lot of people have been asking where we are going from here. Here is a brief (very subject to change!) guide to our next few targets: *February 2003: Curse of Monkey Island completable *Feb - Mar 2003: Regression testing/bugfixes for other supported games *Feb - Mar 2003: Completion of the Launcher functionality (tabbed option dialogs, etc) *Early March 03: CVS Freeze, Regression testing, 0.4.0 release *March onwards: V1/V2 game support (Maniac Mansion, non-FmTowns Zak, EGA Loom, etc.) As usual, this is but a rough guideline depending on both progress and free time for our developers. If you want to help, and know how to use CVS and a compiler... either fix bugs, or regression test! We are very much looking for people to test CVS with games other than ComI and look for critical bugs that were not present in 0.3.0b, then attempt to try different versions of CVS and locate at least the day when the bug started occurring. This allows us to more easily determine what changes have caused problems, without spending weeks blindly guessing. Needless to say, if you find a critical bug that IS also present in 0.3.0b, check for a bug report. If one isn't present, please submit one!
Work has been slow lately, but recently with the addition of Super Dooper Secret Project Number Six, development has started to pick back up with a lot of code cleanup and some fairly important bugfixes. Expect a new release eventually. In other news, there has been a surge in interest of a Playstation 2 port again. I (Ender) am quite willing to do one if people donate at least US$75 (see that little button under the menu) to purchase a modchip. It shouldn't take long, and one of you - our loyal users - has already volunteered to install it for me if I do manage to obtain one. If we find there is enough interest (which will obviously depend on the donation status :), we will start an official port ASAP.
Last Friday, March 14th, our fellow ScummVM developer and friend, Felix Jakschitsch (known to many under his nickname *yot*), committed suicide at the young age of 19. We are completely shocked by this, and do not know or understand what drove him into this. It is a sorrowful world in which a cheerful, intelligent and helpful man is put in a situation in which he sees no other way to escape than taking his own life. We are sad to lose our valued friend. He contributed important work to ScummVM, including much of the Zak256 support. His loss is felt deeply by all of us, and we extend our condolence to his family and close friends, whose grief we share. If you want to leave a message to his friends and family, there is a [guestbook available](http://www.cbg2003.de/). Also here is a news paper article telling more details (use babelfish if you don't speak german). Felix, we miss you and will never forget you.
We've received a number of e-mails lately asking if any work is happening on ScummVM. We would like to reassure people that do -not- follow CVS that yes, a lot of work is happening. We are currently gearing up for the release of 0.4.0, which should be happening within a few weeks. I'd like to ask people who feel like living dangerously to try out CVS and Daily Builds, and let us know of any problems we should be aware of. In the 'Documentation' section on the left, you will see a 'ScummVM 0.4.0 Checklist'. Games that have been tested without any problems are marked there - please test the games that are not marked tested and let us know your results on the Forum **(Update: That's the General forum)**. Remember to include the date you downloaded the build you completed the game with. At the moment we are focusing on earlier EGA games (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, LoomEGA, Indy3EGA), although Beneath a Steel Sky support is progressing at a slow but steady pace. Somebody also recently donated a Playstation 2 modchip to the team, so expect a native PS2 port as soon as Ender has it installed (ScummVM already runs fine under Playstation2 Linux). A reminder to those that are interested in our latest progress, you can always sign up to the cvs-logs mailing list. Click the 'Project Home' link on the left, and browse to the 'Lists' page. This list will receive an e-mail every time there is a new change to the source-code, so be warned it can be rather technical and high-traffic. As an alternative you can just play with CVS Checkouts or Daily Builds and discover anything new yourself :)
Five months after our last release, 0.3.0b, and over 2500 CVS commits/adds later, the ScummVM team proudly presents ScummVM 0.4.0. The following is an overview of what's new in 0.4.0: *Curse of Monkey Island (comi) support (experimental) *Added support for the EGA versions of Loom, Monkey Island and Indy3 *Improved music support in Indy3 and the floppy versions of Monkey Island *Many Simon the Sorcerer 1 & 2 improvements and fixes *Very pre-alpha Beneath a Steel Sky code. Don't expect it to do anything (in fact it is disabled in the 0.4.0 release, but you can get it by compiling ScummVM yourself). *Even more pre-alpha support for enhanced versions of V2 SCUMM games (Maniac Mansion and Zak) *Preliminary support for early Humongous Entertainment titles (very experimental) *New debug console and several GUI/Launcher enhancements *New Save/Load code (easier to expand while retaining compatibility) *Dreamcast port now works with new games added for 0.3.0b *New official PalmOS port *Various minor and not so minor SCUMM game fixes *Large memory leak fixed for The Dig/COMI *SMUSH code optimised, frame dropping added for slower machines *Code cleanups The source code, as well as binaries for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, PocketPC, Solaris and PalmOS are already available at our [download page](/downloads/). Other binaries for MorphOS, Dreamcast and others, will follow shortly. *We hope you will enjoy the best ScummVM ever!*
ScummVM 0.4.1, a stability-focused point release, is now available for download. Changes since 0.4.0 include: *Several crashes/bugs have been fixed in Curse of Monkey Island. *Several iMUSE and music-related bugs have been fixed. *AdvMame3X is new, giving a 3x scaled and AdvMame-smoothed game. *Fixed airport doors in Zak McKracken *Fixed crash in SDL backend The source code, as well as binaries for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris and PalmOS are already available at our [download page](/downloads/). As always, other binaries (for PocketPC, MorphOS, Dreamcast and others) will follow shortly.
ScummVM has just entered a CVS freeze and testing, to prepare for an eventual 0.5.0 stable release (hopefully at the end of July). But we need *YOUR* help! Please click that little 'Documentation' option over there, and look at the [0.5.0 release checklist](http://www.scummvm.org/documentation.php?view=release). If there is a game that is listed as needing testing, and you happen to feel like playing it through with the latest development version of ScummVM, please do so and let us know the results. Further information is on the checklist page. Besides many fixes that will be in the upcoming 0.5.0, especially in the area of music, comes support for three new games: *Enhanced Maniac Mansion *Enhanced Zak McKracken ***Beneath a Steel Sky**, thanks to the support of Revolution In other news, Anonymous CVS is (and has been for some time) lagging behind the official development tree. If you want the bleeding-edge CVS (for testing, as an example), please use the 'Source Snapshot' on the Download page over Anonymous CVS. And of course, **Be Vigilant**
Version 0.5.0 of ScummVM, the classic adventure game interpreter, has just been released. This is our most tested version yet, thanks to everybody who answered our call for testing. Thanks! So what's new? Well, besides the usual bugfixes and improvements are: *Extensive overhaul of the music subsystem, more games now support music *Support for the Enhanced (V2) versions of Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken *Support for Beneath a Steel Sky, made possible thanks to Revolution Software supplying us with the original assembly source code! *Aspect Ratio correction added, by popular request A link to the release notes and a more detailed list of changes can be found over on the [downloads page](/downloads/), along with the downloads... and our special (worst kept secret :) surprise! As an extra SPECIAL bonus, the really really wonderful people at [Revolution Software Ltd.](http://www.revgames.com) have decided to allow us to make Beneath a Steel Sky \*freeware!\* You can download either the CD version (70M, includes speech) or the smaller Floppy version (8M), along with ScummVM 0.5.0, from the [downloads page](/downloads/). Enjoy! Oh, and there is that little donate button down there on the left. We need to buy our Dreamcast porter a copy of Simon the Sorcerer :)
Although ScummVM 0.5.0 is our most tested version yet, a few problems always slip through the cracks. Among some other minor issues, it has come to our attention that Beneath a Steel Sky may occasionally produce unusable save games. Although this is a timing issue, and very rare on most systems, a small group of people may discover this happening fairly often. A ScummVM 0.5.1 point release is planned in the near-future to fix this, and several other smaller issues which have came to our attention. Also, the manual for Beneath a Steel sky and possibly a scan of the included comic will be available for download later in the week. Thanks for everybody's support, and assistance in making our project even better!
