Notices by Aaron Giles (aaronsgiles@corteximplant.com)

When I was doing MacOS ports of LucasArts games back in the 90s, I needed to provide appropriate "About" screens from the Apple menu, so I got to exercise my Programmer Art skills. Recently a kind MacOS fan extracted them for posterity.

Happy release day! DREAMM 3.0 is officially finished and released.

Downloads for Windows, MacOS, and Linux: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm

This version adds support for all remaining DOS-based LucasFilm/LucasArts games (plus some goodies), adds a CRT simulation filter, support for add-on packs, and tons of small changes.

Thanks to everyone who tested, reported bugs, and helped track down new versions! I want to especially call out @alexkaiser for his extensive testing help, John Novak for his CRT shader help, and @danielalbu for his overall project support.

@dosnostalgic Huh, wonder if they manually recreated the cutscenes or if we included the scripts (unused) with the original. We originally intended to run them ingame, but in the end decided it was safer to prerender them to guarantee audio sync across varying systems.

DREAMM 3.0b2 is now available to fix a few key issues from the first beta. First item is particularly important due to shuffling of game IDs: you will want to let DREAMM re-verify your games if you're coming from a 2.x version!

https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta

New in 3.0b2:

• Fixed version check so you are once again prompted after upgrading to scan folders
• Fixed standalone mode
• Fixed black levels in basic and epx OpenGL shaders
• Improved preset matching for sound fonts
• You can now track new versions via RSS at https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/version.xml

Was investigating a bug in the version of Maniac Mansion that shipped with Day of the Tentacle. You can access Maniac Mansion from within DOTT by playing with Weird Ed's computer, in which case it launches the original Maniac Mansion EXE as a subprocess. For the English release, they used the original 160x200 graphics version.

The data files are identical to the original release, so DREAMM supports running this version as a standalone. However, this reveals an interesting bug when running in EGA/VGA mode.

Looking into why this happens, it became clear that LucasArts recompiled the original code for the Day of the Tentacle release with an option that set the minimum CPU version to something higher than base 8086. This is evident because PUSHing immediate values is done directly rather than by loading the immediate into a register first.

However, it appears that when they recompiled the code, it optimized a bit too well, and removed some required EGA/VGA frame buffer reads, leading to the effect below. They likely missed a volatile modifier which didn't matter in the original release.

This would not have hit in the real world because when launching from DOTT (a VGA game) it defaults to MCGA mode which doesn't have this issue. It only happens if you run it directly with either v or e command line options.

@dosnostalgic It was always the height of laziness in arcade ports to just use the built-in PC BIOS font instead of the original arcade font. It's a small thing, sure, but it always bugged me even as a kid, and made it feel less "arcade-y" for no good reason.

The last of the DOS game support added this past week was 1990's Night Shift. This game was totally new to me.

Graphically, it has support for MCGA, VGA, EGA, and Tandy modes. Though interestingly, only the EGA and VGA modes support the full status display at the bottom (via split screen techniques), while the MCGA and Tandy modes just overlay a couple of key elements at the bottom of the screen and scroll the whole screen area. The Tandy colors are very wrong.

Musically we finally get some nice options here. Not just PC speaker, but also 3-voice Tandy sound, CMS/GameBlaster audio, and AdLib FM are all available. I love me a good CMS soundtrack, so this makes me happy.

Copy protection wise, this is the closest to the Monkey Island code wheel. It has mixed head/body combinations that you have to line up, along with a color to select an entry on the wheel. As with the Monkey games, it can be quite challenging to match the onscreen graphics with the code wheel, so I'm always relieved when I get the screen scraping working in DREAMM so I don't have to worry about it anymore.

Gameplay here is a vertically scrolling platformer, with conveyer belts and lots of jumping. Goal is to keep the factory churning out Lucas merchandise, which is rather on the nose. Haven't played it enough to get very far but it runs nicely.

@dosnostalgic Yes.

DREAMM 2.1b2 is now up, with a bunch of key crash fixes. Thanks for the testing!

https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta/

New in 2.0b2
============
* Fixed infinite recursion with malformed paths (affected non-GOG version of TIE Fighter)
* Fixed (hopefully) crash when running Indy Desktop
* Fixed (hopefully) crash when starting Jedi Knight
* Fixed crash running GOG version of Shadows of the Empire due to running out of stack space
* Fixed crash on Windows when minimizing during gameplay
* Fixed crash due to missing API when starting Outlaws historical missions
* Added missing Windows API for unknown version of Yoda Stories reported via telemetry
* Added telemetry ID display to the about box (or indication it's been disabled)

I just put up a new beta of DREAMM 2.0.

https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta/

DREAMM is available for both Windows and MacOS (Catalina+).

DREAMM is an emulator for LucasArts games, including all the SCUMM games plus the later adventure games (Grim Fandango/Escape from Monkey Island) and several mid-90s Star Wars games.

New in this beta is better support for GOG versions of the games, drag & drop sound font/ROM installation, EFMI Demo support, better x87 accuracy, and lots of little things.

Random Dark Forces anecdote. The original level load screen looked like the attached. There's a beveled bar where the arrow is pointing that looks like a progress bar but isn't.

When I did the Mac port, I decided to remedy this obvious oversight, and converted it into a proper progress bar.

#LucasArts #DarkForces