Quest for Glory 1 - Restoring Glory Project

[richruss691]

I started this project probably eight years ago, before SCICompanion 3 was out. I was editing images with the TraduSCI tools. Initially I was just changing some of the images I didn't like. First was the bushes scattered around the forest that looked like placeholder art that never got replaced with real art. Next I had to do something about Baba Yaga and her hut. It's a cave inside for some reason? I changed Baba's face to look like in QfG4 and I put a back wall inside her hut.

A few years later SCICompanion 3 came out with its VGA compatibility and decompiler; I realized I could do a lot more, if I wanted. I decided to try to Make the game more like its EGA counterpart in appearance. I changed the eye on the magick shop to look like an eye instead of whatever it was they were going for and I put a southern wall on the town main street. I then decided the rest of the game looks pretty good, apart from some of the monsters' battle art.

I didn't do much with the mod for quite some time after that, I got focused on more important things. Then the pandemic happened and I suddenly found myself with a lot of free time so I decided to come back to this mod and work on the stuff that required coding, adding back the missing stuff.

So in this mod we see:

• fixed bushes
• new Baba Yaga face
• new wall on Baba Yaga's hut
• new eye on magick shop
• restored southern wall in town main street
• restored Troll's hidy hole
• restored extended end game sequence
• restored music to end game sequence

I am also using the black cape mod and the kobald talker patch, but I don't remember who made them. thank you to the makers of those two mods.
And thank you to all those of these forums who helped me work through the many coding problems I had, and specifically Kawa who donated a small bit of code allowing me to work around an incompatibility Qfg1 VGA has with SCICompanion.
And thank you to the creators of the amazing software that allowed me to make this mod.
And, of course, thank you to EricOakford for providing his reverse engineered source code for the game that I used in modifying the scripts.

The mod is not yet finished, though what I have so far is pretty close to it. I would like some input from the forum. Is there anything I missed that needs to be changed to make the VGA version like the EGA release? Does anyone have a list of the changes? I have been considering changing the intro back to the EGA intro, what do you folks think of that idea?

here's a video showing my work so far



there's a weird thing that happens between chasing Baba Yaga off and the award ceremony that I need to figure out and I still have to sync up the audio in that whole end game sequence and I need to make it so you can interact with the new south wall. I think that's all that's left on the changes I've already started.

[OmerMor]

That's beautiful! Thanks for your hard work!

I noticed a few small issues:
 - At https://youtu.be/1y2qVXWWIxw?t=35, when you start the battle with the troll, the background music of the cave and the battle music are both playing at the same time.
 - At https://youtu.be/1y2qVXWWIxw?t=77, after the defeated troll falls to the ground and you use your hand icon on it, the palette changes right when the response message appears ("The dead troll's huge club is much too heavy for you to lift."). You can see the troll's outline become darker.
 - The end credits message boxes are not as nice as the ones in the EGA version which time-out automatically.

Overall - this a great mod! Congratulations!

[richruss691]

I forgot about the music glitch, I don't think that one will be hard to fix.
The pallet does that weird shift at several points. I'm not sure what's causing it but I think it's tied to the dialog boxes. I'm not sure I'll be able to fix it.
I agree that the end credit message boxes are not as nice. I have not yet figured out how, or if it's even possible, to get them to behave the way they did in the ega version. it is something I intend to look into further.

thank you for your input!

[mrprmiller]

This is just so great; something good in 2020.

One thing the VGA is missing is a few places where time-skips can happen.  For example, getting thrown out of the bar advances time significantly in EGA, but does nothing in VGA.  Also, you can "nap" or "sleep" at the barracks in EGA and it advances time to night.

[richruss691]

thank you for your interest mrprmiller and thank you for the info! good to know!

[mrprmiller]

No, thank you!  I did think of another thing.  It may be a stylistic decision, though.  Giving all of your money to the thieves in the alleyway results in a point loss in the EGA 1.0 version.  This penalty was removed in VGA.

Give me time... I'll probably think of more. 

EDIT: Looking at the code, it seems like the penalty is in the code, but for whatever reason it isn't firing.

[richruss691]

there seems to be a lot of stuff that was basically directly copied from the ega version that doesn't work in the vga. they just didn't take the time to figure out how to make the less important stuff to work. I haven't worked on this in awhile, I need to start compiling a list of all the things i need to look into when I start working on it again

[fenris]

I always wanted to like the remake of the first but felt it was limited compared to the EGA version. QFG is my jam -- I love what you've thought about and done so far and hope you get a chance to work on it again

[EricOakford]

I've been working on a similar project that upgrades the game's engine to the newest version of SCI1.1. I exported the msg files into text files and imported them back in (to convert them from ME 3 to ME 4) and exported the digital audio into WAV files and importing them back in (to turn them into AUD files). Both MSG and AUD resources are now in their own resource files.
I also played through the game to completion to find and fix any bugs that came about.

In short, all that needs doing is to create a binary patch for the resource files. I guess VPatch is a good choice, since it was used in the KQ4 Amiga sounds installer.

[richruss691]

that sounds awesome! would that fix the problem I had with changing and adding msg resources?

[EricOakford]

that sounds awesome! would that fix the problem I had with changing and adding msg resources?

Yes. Since it uses the newer message format, you should have no trouble.

[Kawa]

that sounds awesome! would that fix the problem I had with changing and adding msg resources?

The problem that old format message resources were blanked out on save? That's been fixed recently, for the record.

Changing all old format message resources to new does mean you get to use references, cutting down on repeated lines in the same resource.

[EricOakford]

that sounds awesome! would that fix the problem I had with changing and adding msg resources?

The problem that old format message resources were blanked out on save? That's been fixed recently, for the record.

Changing all old format message resources to new does mean you get to use references, cutting down on repeated lines in the same resource.

Yes, I know that's been fixed. The reason for the upgrade from ME 3 to 4 is thus entirely because the new interpreter (1.001.072, as taken from the interactive demo for Pepper's Adventures in Time) does not support the older format. Nor does it support digital samples in SND files, hence why the samples are now in AUD format.

And yes, I have seen repeated lines in the same resource, especially in the Ogre room. The newer format will allow the redundant lines to be removed.

I have actually completed phase one of the project; it's just a matter of creating a binary patch for the resource files (so that the ScummVM team doesn't blacklist it as a pirated version, which it would be if I just distributed it as is).
Phase two will upgrade the interpreter to 1.001.097 (as taken from the INN demo). It will also use the music from the Macintosh version as it has native General MIDI tracks (unlike the DOS version, which uses a music patch for the MT-32 tracks). The issue with the newer interpreter is that color 254 is now reserved for transparent views, so that you'll find missing pixels in the views. They will need to be altered to not use color 254.

[Collector]

In short, all that needs doing is to create a binary patch for the resource files. I guess VPatch is a good choice, since it was used in the KQ4 Amiga sounds installer.

That installer is mine. I had to include a separate patch for each of the supported versions that the user might have. VPatch is included with NSIS and can be used from the command line or from the included GUI. You can easily invoke the generated patch from an NSIS script.

[EricOakford]

In short, all that needs doing is to create a binary patch for the resource files. I guess VPatch is a good choice, since it was used in the KQ4 Amiga sounds installer.

That installer is mine. I had to include a separate patch for each of the supported versions that the user might have. VPatch is included with NSIS and can be used from the command line or from the included GUI. You can easily invoke the generated patch from an NSIS script.

I think I've figured it out now. With VPatch, I just need to patch RESOURCE.000. As far as I know, all DOS releases of the game (original floppy, Anthology/Collection, GOG/Steam) use exactly the same resource file, so there's only one version of the game to worry about.