What are we working on?

[Kawa]

Buttons and such.

[MusicallyInspired]

Ah yes. That too. The font wasn't the same and there was no embossing.

What did you think of the whole interface of KQ3Redux? The stone look was supposed to mimic the KQ logo stone wall in every KQ game.

[Kawa]

What I think of KQ3 Redux? Graphically speaking? Well, going by the screenshots on Moby...

• I like how the title screen has only one plank, going a little further than KQ6 did...
• ...but then there's the buttons which look just Very Much Not The Part
• The background art seems okay...
• ...but the cursors really need more contrast. I found it hard to tell that the walk cursor is a pair of brown boots, at least on that floor.
• The window frames have a nice design, reminiscent of KQ6, but way too many colors, as do the portraits.
• 51032 colors with no UI or portraits on screen?
• The death screen is all mossed up and the decorative skull overlaps the quit button? If it looked less like the regular window it'd be more acceptable.
• Alpha-blended auras on half-translucent characters. That's a hard pass.

Can you really call them VGA remakes when they go above and beyond VGA? Fun fact: if I read this list correctly there are 320x200 VESA modes in 15, 16, and 32 bit color depths. And 8 bit but then you might as well use 13h. I just tested the first one, 10Dh, with a KQ3 Redux screenshot.

[MusicallyInspired]

It's NOT called VGA. That was expressly intentional.

[Kawa]

Tell that to most everybody else who talks about them lol

[MusicallyInspired]

What other people call the game is irrelevant. "Can you really call them VGA remakes...?" We didn't. The end.

Well, the first two were. But even KQ2 was called KQ2VGA+ and eventually just KQ2+. There was a clear attempt to break away from the VGA label.

[EricOakford]

Here's my prototype of a new SCI1.1 template game!
It's built on top of the ImagiNation Network demo, whose interpreter is an exact match for the interpreters included in the SCI16 source. Said demo also has a complete set of system scripts, and lots of fonts.

This new template is in Sierra Script right from the start, and uses original Sierra names for defines, globals, scripts, and procedures. Various game-specific subclasses (the inventory and icon bar, for example) are now in their own scripts (this became standard in the SCI32 era). There is no assembly code in any of the scripts. Basically, the code is much simpler, cleaner, and more accurate to Sierra's original code.

The graphics are the same as the existing template, but it's quite a different beast script-wise. Then again, Sierra's programmers all had different ways of implementing things.

I was going to do a new SCI0 template, but why bother? My SCI01 template fills that niche just fine, and has additional features (doVerb method, improved memory management, and scrolling styles, to name a few).

Now to bring this to SCI2.1...

[Collector]

I was going to do a new SCI0 template, but why bother? My SCI01 template fills that niche just fine, and has additional features (doVerb method, improved memory management, and scrolling styles, to name a few).

For completeness' sake? It would be nice to have ones for every main SCI version.

[Kawa]

But we can't (de)compile every SCI version 😸

[OmerMor]

Eric,
I've created a github repo for the SCI0 system scripts:
https://github.com/OmerMor/SCI0

It has 2 commits for the 2 versions I have.
You can use that to create better SCI0 template.

[EricOakford]

Eric,
I've created a github repo for the SCI0 system scripts:
https://github.com/OmerMor/SCI0

It has 2 commits for the 2 versions I have.
You can use that to create better SCI0 template.

Cool! I'd better examine these scripts. One set's from November 30, 1988 (close match to LSL2), the other's from October 25, 1989 (close match to LSL3).
I guess I'd better start working on that SCI0 template and touch up the SCI01 and SCI10 templates, since it may be a while before SCICompanion properly supports SCI2.1.

[MusicallyInspired]

I would love to have an SCI01 template game so I can migrate KQ2SCI over to it and use things like PICTURE scrolling.

[Collector]

Might motivate you to get started on it again.

[EricOakford]

And here it is - SCI0 Template Redux! Fully in Sierra Script, built off of the Codename Iceman demo, and no assembly blocks anywhere!

Feel free to fix any bugs that you may notice - that's why I put it up on GitHub in the first place.

[Collector]

Nice.