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What Is ScummVM?
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the games, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed!
Some of the adventures ScummVM supports include Adventure Soft's Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2; Revolution's Beneath A Steel Sky, Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 2; Flight of the Amazon Queen; Wyrmkeep's Inherit the Earth; Coktel Vision's Gobliiins; Westwood Studios' The Legend of Kyrandia and games based on LucasArts' SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) system such as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max and more. ScummVM is continually improving, so check back often.
Among the systems on which you can play those games are Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Dreamcast, PocketPC, PalmOS, AmigaOS, BeOS, OS/2, PSP, PS2, SymbianOS and many more...
Where does ScummVM fit in?
ScummVM is actually a full rewrite of each game's engine, which has many advantages:
* The game can run on many different platforms
* Game graphics can be improved with the use of several graphics filters
* Some bugs which existed in the original game's executable may be fixed
* It's possible to re-encode the game's audio files into popular formats, such as MP3, OGG or FLAC so that the game itself takes up much less space
* LucasArts games have a much improved menu and savegame system
* Most game engines allow the player to save much more save games than the original interpreters did
* In some games, ScummVM offers added functionality which did not exist in the original games.
* It's possible to listen to a supported game's MT-32 music score (if present) without an actual MT-32, via a sophisticated system which emulates it
* ScummVM needs much less CPU and system resources than an emulator, as games run directly in ScummVM and not through an emulated platform
...and perhaps more.
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