[Scummvm-devel] TsAGE engine and Geekwad

[Willem Jan Palenstijn]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 05:34:15PM +0200, Filippos Karapetis wrote:
> Some thoughts from me on this:
> 
> We have another case where a non-adventure game was developed using an
> adventure game engine. As mentioned already, there are several other cases
> where this occurs, such as:
> - Hoyle card games (SCI)
> - The Quest for Glory series (SCI)
> - The Elvira series (AGOS)
> - Waxworks (AGOS)
> - Lands of Lore (KYRA)
> - Rodney's Funscreen (MADE)
> - The backyard series games (SCUMM)
> - Living Books games (MOHAWK)
> .... and more - these are just examples.
> 
> So, in essence, we got a lot of non-adventure games games in several
> different engines. The question that arises here is: what is the fine line
> that must be drawn for such games to be added in ScummVM?

<snip>


I really don't think this is something we could (or should) answer this
precisely in general.


My personal take on it is that I feel we should remain an adventure game
project, though, and it should be no by default for other games.

I should add that I think pointing out existing exceptions isn't a particularly
strong argument for adding a new exception. It may be inconsistent sometimes,
but I don't like the feeling of being pressured by precedent to do something as
important as adding a new (sub)engine to the main tree.

Factors that I think could or should count more are (in random order) the
number of interested developers, code/engine overlap with existing scummvm
code, engine quality, how disruptive it is for the other parts of the
engine, how complete the engine is, ease of future support, how well-known and
good the game itself is, user/tester interest, how close to the adventure genre
it is, and likely others...

(Some of these are of course just as relevant for adventure games.)

That said, I'm not convinced that Geekwad fits in its current state.


-Willem Jan