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News ScummVM has an actively developed Blade Runner engine reimplementation

Aelphaeis Mangarae · 2019-04-29T13:44:29+00:00

A ScummVM engine reimplementation has been in development for a few years. The initial commit was back in late 2016 Github Repo: scummvm/scummvm This is what the game looked like six months ago. Since then it has improved heavily, with save/load support being implemented and heaps of bugs being fixed. It's not officially supported by ScummVM yet, but it is playable, and steady progress is being made. The most recent update was an hour ago from when this thread was posted, adding a bunch of bug fixes. It's only a matter of time before it reaches a satisfactory state. (Incidentally, there's also a ResidualVM reimplementation of The Longest Journey -- which has major problems on modern PCs -- but I'm not sure how that's coming along. It runs, but there are some bugs.) Something interesting about Blade Runner is that it didn't have a proper scripting language. It was written in C, and the script code (think stuff like NPC conversations and NPCs walking around and puzzle logic and all that stuff) was compiled into dlls. This was a really bad way of doing things. Particularly for 1997. The reason Lua became so popular was because Lucasarts needed a scripting language and Lua was the best fit. You don't generally want to write scripting in something like C. As an example, Source didn't have proper scripting support out of the box back in the day. But Half-Life 2 was a fairly basic FPS title by 2004 standards. It wasn't a point and click adventure game. It was an understandable oversight, but an oversight. VTMB had to manually implement Python scripting. Left 4 Dead used a language called Squirrel for its scripting. I mention this to give some perspective on how reimplementing Blade Runner has required the developers to carefully reverse engineer scripting that was written in C. Some people might ask, "What's the big deal?" Well, Blade Runner is a truly excellent point and click adventure game that nailed the Blade Runner universe. It looks good, it sounds good, and it plays well. It was a bold and innovative point and click that tried to avoid the obtuseness of its contemporaries and it features a branching storyline based on your actions, with multiple endings, giving it solid replay value. It featured a fantastic soundtrack based on Vangelis' work, but due to licensing issues they couldn't use his music exactly, so the composers recreated it by ear. IMHO, some of the videogame tracks are... moodier than the film versions. There are even excellent soundalike vocal songs since the films couldn't be used. Blade Runner sold really well back in the day, but has faded into tragic obscurity. It has been stuck in licensing limbo for years, but worse, the game's source code has been lost. The original assets were also lost, which is a huge shame. But the lack of source code means that you're stuck with the original game. Which doesn't particularly like modern PCs, even with the fan patches. ScummVM's engine reimplementation will be better than the original game. Bugs in the original game are being fixed. Cut content is being restored. (Optionally, of course.) Consider the possibilities of pairing this bug-fixed, content-restored engine implementation with background FMVs that have been upscaled using AI techniques. We may have lost the source files, and the devs regret some of the overcompression they applied, but in theory a fair bit of the damage can be undone or mitigated. Blade Runner can be cleaned up visually. Its bugs can be fixed. Content restored due to rushed development or simple oversight can be restored. That's truly wonderful. We may never get an official re-release of Blade Runner, although Night Dive have been working on it for a few years. But in the near future, the game will be perfectly playable via ScummVM, and it will be better than it was in the 90s. If Night Dive can secure the legal rights, they'll be able to use this engine re-implementation to port it any platform they please.

Thread starter Aelphaeis Mangarae
Start date Apr 29, 2019

Threadmarks GOG release

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!

Dec 17, 2019

Blade Runner has just been released on GOG with a footnote saying "This game is powered by SCUMMVM".

Blade Runner

In 1997 Westwood Studios released a title that won universal praise from gamers and criti

www.gog.com

Reactions: Aelphaeis Mangarae, lashman, freshVeggie and 1 other person

EdwardTivrusky
Dec 17, 2019

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