[Scummvm-devel] The 7th Guest

[Travis Howell]

Filippos K wrote:
> The work done on this engine is wonderful, and I'm up for adding it
> to the ScummVM tree
> 
> As for 16bpp color support... well, the GUI does use 16bpp color,
> plus there are already supported games, such as Ween: The Prophecy,
> which would need that many colors to work. There is even a patch
> that aims to add 32bpp color support:
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1664514&group_id=37116&atid=418822

Only the overlay currently offers 16bit color support, game engines 
can't use 16bit color surface directly.

Ween doesn't require 16bit color, but the dithering of colors isn't 
produced accurately, when converted to 16bit surface.

> Also, the later Zork games (Nemesis, Grand Inquisitor etc) use a
> similar engine as MADE, if I'm not mistaken, but use 16bpp colors.

The later games from Humongous Entertainment require 16bit color support 
too.

> Moreover, QuickTime videos used in games (e.g. Myst and Riven) need
> more than 256 colors to be shown correctly. Finally, many newer
> adventure games that could potentially be added to ScummVM in the
> future had 16bpp colors (if memory serves right, Star Trek: The next
> generation, a finaly unity had 16bpp).

Although popular adventure games, their game engines aren't currently 
part of ScummVM.

> So in my opinion it would be better to aim for support of resolutions
> with a higher number of colors in the future, instead of not adding
> games that need more than 256 colors, since SDL itself has support
> for more than 256 colors anyway. Some platforms and non-SDL
> backends might not support that many colors, but not all the games
> that ScummVM supports run under all platforms anyway (due to other
> constraints, like for example memory).

Support for 16bit color has been item on TODO for awhile, due to support 
been required by later games from Humongous Entertainment. But there is 
currently no one working on or planning to work on 16bit color support 
in ScummVM (as far as I know), although a few people have looked into 
the issue.

If the GROOVE game engine is added to ScummVM, and its developers want 
to expand the supported games in the future, 16bit color is required. 
Adding 16bit support in ScummVM would more complicated, with the many 
game engines and platforms supported by ScummVM. Do the developers of 
GROOVE game engine, want that extra work load, when working on 16bit 
support in the future?

I'm not against adding the GROOVE game engine to ScummVM, I only wanted 
to clarify a future disadvantage, to make sure everyone was aware of it.

The 7th Guest sounds like those old choose your own adventure books, but 
with movie scenes. An adventure game of different type, and still 
suitable for ScummVM.