At one point in gaming history, LucasArts titles were some of the most cherished games on the PC platform, especially in the point-and-click genre. Games like Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango were highly praised for their dialogue and overall writing, which, given that Tim Schafer was responsible for much of their plots and characters, is not too surprising. Now, the game engine used to run many of these beloved titles is celebrating twenty years, and has added support for yet more adventure games.
According to a report from Kotaku, Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine, otherwise known as ScummVM, is celebrating two decades of being around. The team behind its development have released a new version capable of running even more games. ScummVM was first released in 2001 and was originally used to run The Secret of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, another game with Schafer's name attached and made by LucasArts, before more games were added.
As well as some other fondly-remembered titles, such as Little Big Adventure, and Myst 3: Exile, ScummVM 2.5.0, as it's being referred to as, will also be supporting such classics as Grim Fandango. Originally released in 1998, Grim Fandango was given a remaster a few years ago, which gave the game a visual boost but maintained much about the original. It's generally considered to be one of the best LucasArts games ever made, sitting up there with the likes of the aforementioned Secret of Monkey Island series, and Day of The Tentacle.
The software also supports some non-LucasArts games as well, such as the Leisure Suit Larry series made by Sierra On-Line, a studio which, along with the former, put out some of PC gaming's most notable adventure games at the time before sadly becoming defunct in 2008. As well as additional support for more games, ScummVM 2.5.0 will also be tweaked with general improvements and features, which include a reworked user interface, as well as adding Steam and GOG achievements to some games, and adding text-to-speech for other titles as well.
While the genre may have all but fallen off the wayside over the past two decades, there are still some worthy point and click adventure games that hold up to this day. At its prime, the likes of Sierra and LucasArts were the head honchos of this missed PC gaming style, but the update to ScummVM may entice some older fans back into it, or perhaps even encourage newer gamers to check what some games used to be like.
Source: ScummVM