ScummVM releases big new update to celebrate 20 year anniversary
What an adventure.
ScummVM is 20 years old - and to celebrate it's just released a big new update.
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a program that allows you to run many classic point-and-click adventure games and RPGs on modern computers.
ScummVM was created by then computer science student Ludvig Strigeus, who pushed the initial revision of the code, version 0.0.1., on 9th October 2001. It was originally created to play LucasArts adventure games that use the Scumm system, but it supports many non-Scumm games, too.
Now, 20 years later, ScummVM has released version 2.5.0. It's the first release that supports "2.5D" games, and with that comes support for Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey and Myst 3: Exile.
ScummVM also now officially supports 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
- Private Eye
- AGS Games versions 2.5+
- Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy
- The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time
- Crusader: No Remorse
- L-ZONE
- Spaceship Warlock
"We wish you great adventuring, happy puzzle-solving and exciting journeys to RPG worlds, and hope to see you around in the coming years," the ScummVM team said.
GOG.com launched a special promo to celebrate the anniversary, and paid tribute to the "group of people behind the scenes who make sure some of GOG's timeless classics work smoothly on modern computers!"
ScummVM rewrites executables shipped with games and makes them playable on systems for which they were never designed, but does not require emulators and complex setups.
For example, over the course of eight years, ScummVM dug into Westwood Studios' beloved 1997 point-and-click adventure Blade Runner and expertly updated the game, even restoring some cut content. It's this work that powers the December 2019 GOG release of the original Blade Runner.
"I wrote Scumm and I don't think I could do what they did," Ron Gilbert, former LucasArts developer and inventor of Scumm said in a blog post. "Respect."