Missing the actual date by a couple of days – which is almost an off-by-one-or-two error, the bane of any programmer’s life – the developers of ScummVM have released another new version of the software to almost coincide with the 25th anniversary of its first public commit (putting the latest change(s) to the code – or in this case the first actual code, I imagine, without looking to check – into the repository).
ScummVM stands for Script creation utility for maniac mansion Virtual Machine – and it was originally developed in 2001 as a means to play games from the LucasArts stable that used a particular ‘engine’ on other (or more modern) platforms. However, in the intervening 25 years it has grown far beyond that, and supports many more engines, and with them a huge number of games.
Version 2026.4.0 of the software adds twelve new engines to the system, as well as numerous enhancements to those already handled by the software – all of which means there are now a further 194 games that can be played with it. For full details of these titles, see the announcement of this release on the ScummVM site – and from there you can follow the relevant links to download the RISC OS version.
Cameron Cawley, who helps with ScummVM – and in particular, keeps the RISC OS port of it up to date with the other platforms on which it runs – will be exhibiting at the London Show on 24th October – pop along to see him if you want to find out more about the software, or see it in action.
