[Scummvm-devel] Understaffing (Was: What is happening to the ScummVM team?)

[Paul Gilbert]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Max Horn <max at quendi.de> wrote:

>
> BTW, one thing that also bothers me a bit are engines that languish in
> a half-ready state. I wonder if any of cruise, igor, m4, made will
> ever see the light of day (= be completed) ?
>


> Cheers,
> Max
>

Well, I'm currently 'mucking' around with the Cruise engine, to see if I can
I can complete it's functionality. I'll also be spending some occasional
time working on my Rex Nebular (MADS/M4), so I'll be abe to add some more
implementation to the current engine gradually. It's just that with the
game's usage of movable segments, it's a bugger trying to trace through the
execution of any of the code, so I've tended to leave it as a lower priority
in the recent past, preferring to concentrate on more fun things, like
working on implementing Discworld 2. ;)

I've also got a few other low-low-priority projects I've been experimenting
with. If I ever get any of them to a stage where it looks even remotely
possible they'll be completable, I'll make an announcement on #scummvm-devel
and keep everyone updated in my blog from then on.

As for the other engines, I can't really comment on them. But if I can
digress on the issue of the engines in general, IMHO though,  one of the
things that's always disappointed me in many of the open source game
projects is that their news says that they're making progress, but then they
lose interest, or the Real World(TM) interferes, and none of their work ever
sees the light of day. With ScummVM, I'm personally happy that even
partially implemented engines have been accepted into the repository.. it
means that even if the original author can't/won't continue work on the
project, we have all their work so far handy, and anyone who is interested
can later take over the project.

The current scheme where in-progress engines are left 'not enabled' means
that they don't interfere with the main project unless people deliberately
choose to include them. So I think the benefits from having extra engines in
the repository, even partly implemented, outweighs any problems including
them may incurr.

Regards,

Paul.
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