Some Carmen Images

Well, we don't support Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? yet beyond showing images. But we added support for the DOS images of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition yesterday, so I figured I'd show it off. Also, I don't update my blog enough, so here's a post.

Where Wile E. Coyote Shops

Police Squad! ...In 256 Colors

These are the same (well, similar) images from the intro of the two games. The former is in EGA from Deluxe and the latter in VGA from v2. They went full screen for Deluxe game and decided to size it down for Windows (The first image is actually three 640x160 images put together).

Surprisingly (or I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering how much Brøderbund likes to reuse things), the CSWorld Deluxe archive format is the same one used in Prince of Persia 2!

I cracked the archive format before I realized PoP2 used it, so I only found this info out afterward. Same with the simple SND resource format. I checked out the specs for the bitmap decompressor and applied a modified version to the ScummVM source (thanks to fuzzie for helping figure out the data was EGA planar). And lo and behold, it uses the exact same modified LZ decompression that was used in all other Mohawk games (minus Riven). It looks like the planar part isn't in PoP, but I'm not sure.

One last note: We will not support Prince of Persia 1/2 in ScummVM no matter how much you ask. ;)

Are You Ready for the Summer?

Summer is just around the corner, though I've been off from Uni for over a month now (since my last post). So, what's been happening?

Continuing off my last post: SCI Mac. I began working on the KQ6 Mac icon bar interface. The picture below has a slightly off-centered position and slightly off-colored palette. The PICT code got moved from Mohawk to common code and was updated to allow for paletted images. The Mohawk QuickTime code was also moved to common code and updated to show the Cinepak-based movies. However, they don't show completely correctly due to "Cyan logo syndrome." Seeking support in QuickTime has a higher priority on my TODO list, so that comes first ;) I haven't made progress on other SCI1.1+ Mac games.

Mohawk. I fixed several bugs, such as the videos not showing when clicking on a stone in the rebel tunnel puzzle or when opening the cage in Gehn's office (not yet accessible from the beginning anyway). The boiler puzzle also got some fixes. There were a couple other minor fixes as well. Eugene changed some detector code to allow for detection through nested directories so Riven is playable directly off the DVD now (CD swapping will happen in the future :)).

SCI. Gabriel Knight is completable (albeit with extreme graphical glitches) up to trying to get inside Madame Cazanoux's house in Day 3 (door knocker not 'operatable'), thanks to various fixes from myself, md5, m_kiewitz, and Walter. Mostly (pun intended), that's all I've been working on in SCI. I've also promised myself to play one GK1 day each day (in DOSBox) starting tomorrow (June 18), meaning 17 years after the original game took place. Day 2 is clearly the best of the days.

That concludes this update. I'm looking forward to cheesecake on Saturday and Futurama next Thursday.

PS - Yay! (When sf.net stops throwing python exceptions)
PPS - Carmen Sandiego!
PPPS - In case you didn't get the title reference...

Spanning the Globe

After some work, I've gotten images in various other games (besides Myst and Riven) to display properly in Mohawk. Here's a little teaser of what I've been working on:

Hopefully, someone will recognize that image from "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" It's the main interface at the bottom of the screen. Any transparency is represented by black right now. Of course, none of the other games are playable yet, but this opens the door for working on the other games. But, there's still lots of Myst and Riven stuff to do ;)

Mohawk Recap

Holy Cherokee, Batman! It's two days in a row with posts!

This is pretty much a follow-up to the Mohawk Galore! post from last year. Since that, I've discovered a couple more (which I forget if I mentioned or not) and I know of several others that are very likely to use it. So, in summary, here is a recap of all the games.

Definitely Mohawk
- Myst (Windows version)
- Riven (Windows and Macintosh versions)
- Myst: Masterpiece Edition
- Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
- Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? (The Great Amtrak Train Adventure)
- Green Eggs and Ham
- In the 1st Degree
- Logical Journey of the Zoombinis
- Maggie's Farmyard Adventure
- James Discovers Math
- James Explores Math
- The Treehouse

Likely/Known to Be Mohawk
- Koala Lumpur: Journey to the Edge
- Math Workshop Deluxe
- Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?
- Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?
- Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective
- Carmen Sandiego Math Detective
- Carmen Sandiego Word Detective
- Various other Living Books

Not Mohawk
- Myst (Macintosh, Amiga, Console/Handheld versions)
- Riven (PlayStation, Sega Saturn)
- RealMyst
- Any other Myst sequel
- Any Carmen Sandiego game not on Windows/Macintosh
- Any game created by The Learning Company (after buying Broderbund's property)



And, one last sum up. What works so far:

Myst:
- Pictures, Sound, Basic Card/Hotspot Support, Early Video Support, Cursors. The opening scene works.

Myst ME:
- Same as Myst, with less Picture support. The opening scene works, minus a background image.

Riven:
- Pictures, Sounds, etc. Pretty much everything minus videos and various hardcoded puzzles. The game is completable up until the boiler puzzle and you are able to retrieve the trap book from Tay.

All Other Games:
- Sounds, Early Video Support, MIDI. Some basic structure is known for its pictures and other resources.