[Scummvm-devel] KYRA - Eye of the Beholder extension

[Johannes Schickel]

On 12/01/2011 10:05 PM, Filippos Karapetis wrote:
>
>
>     Maybe it's just me who wonders now why we have a big strict saying
>     that
>     we focus on adventure games, while we add non-adventures with only
>     small
>     parts of code shared with existing engines.
>
>
> Because in this case, the main engine that was added was focused on 
> adventure games. EOB 1 and 2 are a subset of this engine.
>

If you consider any game which uses utility functions and file formats 
from Kyra1-3 as a subset of the adventure engine, when we can probably 
support Dune 2 and Command & Conquer 1 and 2 too.

> So, again, does the debate in subengines come down to SLOC? If we are 
> that strict and *only* adventure games are supported, then all 
> non-adventure games should be disabled, or we come down with a 
> compromise (i.e. "only 2D point'n'click adventure games and 
> non-adventure games that were created using a supported 2D 
> point'n'click adventure game engine").

No, I wouldn't (and didn't, which you may have noticed if you read my 
mail) take SLOC as a base for this discussion. The discussion base I 
chose is *what* we actually need to add to support the game. EoB 1+2 and 
LoL have (at least partly) hardcoded support for monster related 
handling, for items too and in general for the rule system used in the 
game, level stuff, a new graphics drawing pipeline for the game screen. 
All this is in no way a subset of the adventure games in Kyra nor even 
at all related. It is a different game (engine) using parts of the same 
framework as the Kyra games use.

In this sense it is different from the RPGs we support with AGOS and 
SCI. In the case of AGOS the code gives the impression there's more 
shared code between the games it supports, i.e. even the item handling 
has some common base between the RPGs and the adventures. In the case of 
SCI I think there's not much (none at all?) game specific hardcoded bits.

Thus from a technical side it doesn't really make sense to take AGOS or 
SCI RPG games as an argument why we should add EoB. In fact the 
"compromise", which is basically what we implement so far anyway, you 
suggested doesn't really cover EoB, since EoB isn't really created using 
the same engine as Kyra 1-3. It's merely using the same (utility) 
framework Westwood used in all of its games from that area. At any rate 
I never even claimed we should only support adventures when we can 
easily support non-adventures like say in the case of SCI.

// Johannes