Adventure Games in Yer Pocket- ie. PocketPCs

[SirDave]

I was interested to find that in the thread, Greatest Adventure Games of All Time, that in addition to Grim Fandango, there was almost a consensus that the LucusArts Scumm games (eg. Monkey Island 1-3, Indiana Jones FOA) were high on the list.

So for my first post here, I thought I'd remind everyone that the PocketScumm project (courtesy author Arisme) allows you to play almost all the Scumm games (eg. Monkey Island 1-3, Indiana Jones FOA, The Dig, Zak McCracken, Sam & Max, Day of The Tentacle) and, in addition, Beneath A Steel Sky, and Simon the Sorcerer 1&2 on almost all the older and recent PocketPCs. If you haven't seen these games running on a PPC, you're in for a real surprise/treat! PocketScumm is free, but you have to provide the games themselves. FYI: Beneath A Steel Sky is now available free (legally).

The PocketScumm forum is at:
http://www.pocketmatrix.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=20

And my official PocketScumm manual showing you how to set the games up is in the same forum at:

http://www.pocketmatrix.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8606

[DomStLeger]

Just to make it clear to everyone, PocketScumm is a port of ScummVM, so you can do the same on your PC (windows, linux etc), Mac, etc. And all you need is an original copy of the game.

(P.S. a windows copy of MI for example will work on almost any system scummvm works)

Both can be downloaded from http://www.scummvm.org/ ; but of course you all know that because of the BASS stuff :D

[SirDave]

Just to make it clear to everyone, PocketScumm is a port of ScummVM, so you can do the same on your PC (windows, linux etc), Mac, etc. And all you need is an original copy of the game.
http://www.scummvm.org/[/url] ; but of course you all know that because of the BASS stuff :D

Dom:
Thanks for reminding people of that. I usually assume they know it, but Arisme would be the first to make sure everyone knows his work is a port of ScummVM. That said, he deserves a lot of credit for the work he's done. Getting some of these games working on PPCs using the ScummVM code is a major challenge and he's doing it all for nothing.

[DanteGR]

Why can't I understand a thing?
Could u make it more clear plz?
What is this scumm thing?
Thanks!

[DomStLeger]

Hehe, don't worry it is confusing.

Basically ScummVM (and it's ports, such as PocketScumm) is a program that lets you run your old adventure games (lucasarts, adventuresoft and revolution so far) on almost any computer. It basically replaces the old EXE you used to use to run your games.

For example, if you own a PC copy of Monkey Island 1, you can run that copy on almost any computer you like using scummvm with no problenms

Why is that useful? Well apart from portability it means you can now run old adventure games without any problems in Windows etc. For example, Day of the Tentacle (DOTT) can be a pain to run in windows because of the "Not enough base memory" errors or because your soundcard doesn't work in dos (or with Dos games, such as in Windows2000). But with Scummvm you don't get any such problems because using it is basically the same as having a Windows version of the game.

Edit: PocketScumm is the version of scummvm that works on PocketPCs. It's based on ScummVM but has been modified by the programmers to make it work properly on pocket pcs. it means you can now take your PC version of Monkey Island and run it on a pocket PC for example.

Both are absolutely free. All you need is a copy of the original game. The only game where you don't need your own copy is Beneath a Steel Sky because Revolution decided to make it freeware.

[Erwin_Br]

I currently have MI2 and FOA installed on my PocketPC. I wanted to install DOTT and/or Sam and Max too, but my navigation system (or rather it's maps) have consumed the remaining megs of my memory card. :\

The map of the Netherlands alone is already 60 Meg. And we're not even a big country!

--Erwin

[DanteGR]

Thanks Dom!
Now I get it.

[SirDave]

Here's one way to look at PocketScumm:

People will tend to say 'Oh why would I want to spend a few hundred dollars for a PocketPc for this?'

Well, with as little as $200-$300 you can get a new PocketPC (eg. Dell Axim or somesuch), take the LucasArts Scumm games you already have and get them running on the PPC with very little effort. (And don't forget that you can get an older PPC on Ebay for $100-$150 that will run PktScumm just as well.) The result is that you have the ability to potentially have 8-10 adventure games in your pocket to play anywhere you want, anytime. After all, isn't it rather restrictive having to wait to play until you're sitting at that big-sucker desktop when you could be playing on the bus, on the plane or waiting in the doctor's office?

Okay, what about the cost thing? Well, if you think about it, a lot of us haven't thought anything about going out and buying a Gameboy Advance and a bunch of accessories for $100-$150. And by the time you factor in the cost of 2 or 3 GBA games, you're well over $200. So just how many adventure games can you play on a GBA?

Case closed!

[detonation2000]

Hey everybody!

Ive been cruising this forum every once in a while for a good 2 or 3 years now but rarely posted. I think they deleted me. anyways I signed up again.

Im very interested in the Pocket PC adventure games because I just bought a beautiful HP iPAQ 1940. These things are sick. It runs 3d graphics amazing and is very powerful plus built in blue tooth and i twas only 399 Canadian! I recommend this over any pocket PC. Value wise it is by far the best.

Anyways I just finished beating Fade which is the only Adventure game made specifically for the Pocket PC. I went looking for oter adventure games and could not find any. Until I heard of this pocket Scummv thing.

Here is my question. Its great tha tI can play Monkey island 3 on my pocket PC but what about memory? has anyone been able to say scale down the graphics and movies to the size of a pocket PC screen. because I only have about 40 megs of space and even if I go tan expansion card they are like only 256 megs. Thats not enough to say hold monkey island 3. It seems such a waste to install this games graphics at such high resolution.....

If there was a way to scale them down we could be playing new adventure games on pocket PC and that would be awesome!

I cant even get the CD version of beneath a steel sky because its 60 megs...

[justG]

Regarding additional memory, all depends whether you go SD or CF. Don't remember now whether the 1940 has both slots or not, but you can always get a CF expansion pack, and with that a microdrive or something. I've got the CF expansion pack and a 1gb microdrive. Plenty of room.

[detonation2000]

true enough. I think you can get higher then 256 for mine. Its only SD but it has SDIO capabilities wich is awesome. I can get the 256meg card that comes with WiFi. Thats just cool.

Another benefit to caling down is that the processor doesnt have to work as hard. It doesnt have t oprocess something meant for a much bigger screen. for instance when their are movies in say monkey island 3....

[detonation2000]

oh and anyone who hast tried Fade for pocket PC please do. Its not a prefect game but there were parts of it where i was very impressed. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And the puzzles werent dumb and mindless.

It is however adult rated for brief nudity and sexual references, violence, and I think some language.

[detonation2000]

one other question...

I just tried the smaller version of beneath a steel sky and it works great. only complaint is that there is that scummv logo at the bottom and the 4 things to click. it there anyway I can have those disappear so I have more room to make the game full screen so it is easier to read?

[SirDave]

Hey everybody!

Here is my question. Its great that I can play Monkey island 3 on my pocket PC but what about memory? has anyone been able to say scale down the graphics and movies to the size of a pocket PC screen. because I only have about 40 megs of space and even if I go an expansion card they are like only 256 megs. Thats not enough to say hold monkey island 3. It seems such a waste to install this games graphics at such high resolution.....

If there was a way to scale them down we could be playing new adventure games on pocket PC and that would be awesome!

I cant even get the CD version of beneath a steel sky because its 60 megs...

Detonation:
Read my manual (SirDave's PocketScumm Mini-Manual)- the URL is given in my first post that started this thread. The purpose of the manual is to show how to set PktScumm and the games up. Most important to your question is the fact that part of the reason for the manual was to show the various ways of setting up the games to save space.

In determining the space required, you can't go by the space the game occupies on the cdrom. The games can be made to run in much less space than that. For instance, The Dig can be stored in as little as 85mb. Curse of Monkey Island can occupy only 146mb.

Here's a real-life example. On a 128mb CF or SD card your HP/Ipaq 1940 could store Monkey Island 1&2, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Zak McKracken (Townes version), Loom, and Indiana Jones FOA. If you get a 256mb card, you could add games like The Dig or your beloved MI3 on it and cut out, say, Loom. If you go crazy and get a 1gig card (like that smart lady Gita/JustG), you can run almost all the LucasArts Scumm and related games!

[Jake]

I'm sure this has been covered elsewhere, but does PocketScumm have some sort of down-scaling filter so that Curse of Monkey Island will properly run on a 320x240 pocketpc?

[SirDave]

I'm sure this has been covered elsewhere, but does PocketScumm have some sort of down-scaling filter so that Curse of Monkey Island will properly run on a 320x240 pocketpc?

Yes. In fact, PocketScumm allows you to play the games in portrait or landscape mode on the PPC.

[detonation2000]

Ah yes I did just read that! very interesting. My last question now would be can I use some prgram to lower the video width down for pocket PC so that I can still have the videos of monkey island 3 and have low file size?

Ive used Windows media Encoder to bring down regular movies and it worked just dandy. now can I use that on in game movies?

Unfortunately the biggest card I will buy will be 512 because thats all I will be able to afford and that wont be for a month or 2.

Is there maybe a way I can even lower the voice and music stuff like change it to mono and drop the bit rate.....

There is no reason that this game cannot have all music voice and video and still be amazingy small file sizes....

and even lowering the size of the pictures in the game to smaller sizes..... That of course requires divulging further into the game. I would be curious as to know how to do that......

[SirDave]

Ah yes I did just read that! very interesting. My last question now would be can I use some prgram to lower the video width down for pocket PC so that I can still have the videos of monkey island 3 and have low file size?

There is no reason that this game cannot have all music voice and video and still be amazingy small file sizes....

and even lowering the size of the pictures in the game to smaller sizes..... That of course requires divulging further into the game. I would be curious as to know how to do that......

Some of the games can be made smaller by decreasing the sampling and bit rate of the sound/voice/music files but only within certain limits. You will have to read thru the PktScumm and ScummVM forums to find out what people have tried, what works, what doesn't. Part of the answer depends on what PocketScumm will accept. More recent versions can handle smaller bitrates and, I believe OGG files now. In short, if you want to do all of this, you'll need to become a bit of a PktScumm expert!

[Zanthia]

I can imagine 2 myself what eye killing is playing on those pcs. :)

[A_Lee_N]

Yeah ScummVM is great, but on the more interesting side; Gilbert Goodmate is currently getting ported to PocketPC and the guys behind it are actually searching for beta testers of the game. Word has it that the game is more or less finished but that they need more beta testers before they actually can complete they game and maike it available for the general public.

More information and and form to sign up for beta testing can be found at the following URL:

http://www.z-logics.com/GilbertPDA.html

- Tobias 'A_Lee_N' Lind

[DomStLeger]

Ah Gilbert Goodmate, theres a name I haven't heard in a while. I rather enjoyed what I played of it, but never quite finished it (I think I got sidetracked by MOTD). It wasn't too bad from what I remember (*remembering the many different replies you got for Use Princess Whatsherface still brings a smile to my face*)

[Tanukitsune]

So just how many adventure games can you play on a GBA?

-The Fish Files
-Deja Vu I&II
-Shadowgate
-Broken Sword I
-Hamtaro Ham-Hams Unite
-Hamtaro Ham-Ham Heartbreak
-The New Addams Family
These are all I know of...

[Firefoot]

Hey... another good reason to buy a Pocket PC... I think I'm going to spend money with the PC-privé of our compary... :D

Always handy if you have your AG nearby if you're bored somewhere... :P