Well, as of ScummVM r35060, the Groovie engine is part of it. Yes, that’s right folks, if you download the Daily Snapshot of ScummVM from now on, you’ll be able to play The 7th Guest with it.
We’re going to keep the google code project going, but the svn repos there might not always have the most recent code: that will be in ScummVM. And this blog will continue indefinitely :-).
… kinda. Apparently. As of r328, the game should be completable without the use of the library. However, no-one has played it through from start to finish: if anyone wants to try to play the game all the way through, please let us know if it works! As stated in the last post though, disassembling the AI for the microscope puzzle is going to take quite some time as it is very complicated: at the moment Stauf may seem considerably more stupid than you remember him (in fact, his moves aren’t even valid: he basically does nothing the entire game). But still. The game’s completeable! Yay!
Wow.
I leave the project for one day, and come back to find that Jordi has changed four bits in the source code, leading to the fact that at least five more puzzles are now complete. Of the two that are left, one might work (apparently, just about to test it myself :-), and the other is going to be very, very difficult. It’s the microscope puzzle, which if you know the game, you’ll know is very different to all the others, as it involves an albeit basic form of AI.
We’re trying to figure out how many different versions of groovie games (particularly t7g) there are, and the differences between them. If you want to help out, you’ll need a copy of t7g (or other Groovie game), the ability to create an iso file from it (e.g. one of these pieces of software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_image_software), and the ability to generate md5 hashes from the resulting files. Then post the relevant information as a comment on the checksums page. We will also need the executable version number: this can be found by running the executable (v.exe for t7g, v32.exe for 11h) in a command window (or in Dosbox).
http://code.google.com/p/t7gre/wiki/Status
It has been pointed out to me, that since I last posted any actual news about t7gre, quite a lot has changed. Jordi has been working away since I last posted (about MIDI music working), and we now have a wiki page to keep track of which puzzles are working, and 13 out of the 21 puzzles in the game are working fine. That’s an amazing testament to the work that he’s put in over the past few months. But now he’s getting distracted in other directions… take a look at this!
Well, the most hectic time on The Tale of Despereaux is (probably) over, and I have a little more time. Just enough time, in fact to spend a substantial amount of this weekend installing Kubuntu 8.10, and to get pissed off at KDE 4.1 (which, despite its prettiness and everything, seems to have less features than KDE 3.5).
But I have managed to do a little on t7gre, even if it is just to fix a small regression that has been there for goodness knows how long… ever since Jordi revamped the movie player to, y’know, work properly. Shows how often we watch the intro! Well, it is ridiculously long…
And so just as I’m thinking I’ll dig back into the assembly, I discover that VirtualBox, the method by which I run WinXP IDA on Linux, has stopped working. Grrr. Having re-isntalled it, it works, but my VM now BSODs on startup. I have to install Windows. AGAIN.
Calm down. Relax. Man, I wish I could afford copy of IDA for Linux…
Well, apart from only getting in from work at 8pm each evening, I now have something else to distract me from t7g: we got a Wii. I’m sure sooner or later I’ll get bored of it, but atm its sucking up all my spare time 🙂
But don’t be downhearted: jvprat has been working in my absence, and he’s implemented music! Which is v cool: remember the music when you click on the painting at the top of the stairs? I did 😉 It’s not fully implemented yet, but it’s a good start!
When I first played The 7th Guest, it was at a friend from school’s house: he was the only person I knew with a cd-rom drive. We played it, I think, all the way through, and I have many happy memories of those times.
I have barely spoken to Jake since, and over the last year or so while I’ve been investigating the game, I’ve also been remembering those times. I thought I’d let him know what I was up to, and to remind him of those times too. But I can’t find him on tinternet at all, it has failed me! So Jake Taylor from Hale, if you’re reading this (bit of a long shot), leave a comment!
This post is predominantly an apology. In order to get the surfaces working the same way that they do in the original, I’ve had to hack apart some of the beautifully structured code that jvprat wrote, and my coding is not as… well, good.
Anyway, the internal structure is more suited to continuing work now, but there are extra graphical glitches for your delectation. Mmmmm.