SCUMM

For other meanings, see Scum.

SCUMM stands for Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion and is a scripting language developed at LucasArts (known at the time as Lucasfilm Games) to ease development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion.

It is somewhere between a game engine, and a programming language, allowing designers to create locations, items and dialogue sequences without writing code in the actual language the game source code would end up in. This also meant that the game's script and data files could be re-used across various platforms. SCUMM is also a host for embedded game engines such as iMUSE (standing for Interactive MUsic Streaming Engine), INSANE (standing for INteractive Streaming ANimation Engine), CYST (in-game animation engine), FLEM (places and names object inside a room), MMUCUS. SCUMM has been ported on the following platforms: 3DO, Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, CDTV, Commodore 64, Fujitsu Towns & Marty, Apple Macintosh, NES, MS-DOS/PC-DOS, Microsoft Windows, Sega Mega CD, and TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine.

History

The original version was coded by Aric Wilmunder and Ron Gilbert in 1987, with later versions enhanced by Aric Wilmunder (a.k.a. the SCUMM Lord) and various others.

SCUMM was subsequently reused in many later LucasArts adventure games being both updated and rewritten several times. There are at least 10 known versions of the SCUMM engine, numbered as "version 0" (for the original Commodore 64 version of Maniac Mansion), "version 1", "version 1.5" (for the NES version of Maniac Mansion), and "version 2" up through "version 8". LucasArts finally abandoned the SCUMM engine in 1998 when they switched to GrimE for the game Grim Fandango.

Design

Most SCUMM games feature a verb-object design paradigm. The player-controlled character has an inventory, and the game world is littered with objects with which the player can interact, using a variety of verbs — a large collection of these featured in the early games, but by The Curse of Monkey Island these had been whittled down to "Look at/through", "Use" (which was context sensitive and could produce various actions — Pick up, push, pull, etc.) and "Talk to/Lick/Consume".

Puzzles generally involve using the right verb action with the appropriate object — "use biscuit cutter with another rubber tree", for example.

"Talk to" produces dialogue sequences, in which the player selects from a list of pre-defined questions or comments, and the character they are talking to replies with a pre-defined response.

The notable exception to this general paradigm is LOOM, which does not use the standard verb/object paradigm, but does feature dialogue sequences.

Versions

Version 0

Maniac Mansion (Commodore 64 version)

Version 1

Maniac Mansion (original PC version)
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (Commodore 64 and original PC versions)

Version 1.5

Maniac Mansion (NES version)

Version 2

Maniac Mansion (Amiga and enhanced PC versions)
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (Amiga, Atari ST and enhanced PC versions)

Version 3

The Graphic Adventure (Amiga, EGA/VGA PC and FM-Towns versions)
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (VGA remake for FM Towns system)
LOOM (Amiga, EGA PC floppy disk and FM-Towns versions)

Version 4

The Secret of Monkey Island (Amiga and EGA/VGA PC floppy disk versions)
LOOM (VGA PC CD-ROM version)

Version 5

The Secret of Monkey Island (VGA PC CD-ROM version)
LeChuck's Revenge (PC and Amiga versions)
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (PC and Amiga versions)

Note: The iMUSE technology was first implemented in this version of SCUMM. Also at this point, the SCUMM system branched off when developer Ron Gilbert licensed it for use in the games created by his company, Humongous Entertainment. The SCUMM system continued to grow there on a separate track up to version 11.

Version 6

Version 7

Full Throttle
The Dig

Version 8

The Curse of Monkey Island

Today

ScummVM is an open source project to make a free, portable, SDL library based, C++ coded SCUMM engine client. This allows many of the SCUMM engine games to be played on systems where the original versions will not work or have trouble operating including modern Windows and Macintosh systems, GNU/Linux, Palm OS, PocketPC, Sega Dreamcast, Xbox, Playstation 2, Playstation Portable, Nintendo DS, and Symbian (SeriesXX and UIQ) platforms (see compatibility list at http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Platforms ).

References

The SCUMM bar in The Secret of Monkey Island is named after the SCUMM system.

External links

Adventure game engines

Gourt Home::Gourt :: SCUMM