Question on SCIness of some games

[Swimtent]

I remember playing a LOT of sierra games when I was a lad. Some of my favorite passtimes were the Island of Dr. Brain series and Jones in the Fast Lane.  Were these games made with SCI?

Thanks,
Swimtent

[Chris Cromer]

Yes they where.

[OmerMor]

Even the first 4 Hoyle Games were SCI ... What an amazing game engine ...

[OmerMor]

I want to correct myself:
The first 5 hoyle games were SCI!

BTW - does any1 here knows the latter Dr. Brain games?
There are 2 knowns games:
(a) "The Castle of Dr. Brain", and (b) "The Island of Dr. Brain", and they're both SCI, but I once read that there are more less known games in this series such as "Lost Mind of Dr. Brain" and "The Time Warp of Dr. Brain".
I wonder if those games are also SCI, and if anyone here has them... ?

[Ian]

I don't believe the last two in the series were developed using SCI.  I did play Time Warp of Doctor Brain once, and I saw the other in action, and they seemed to be simply native Win32 applications, with full 32-bit colour.

In any case, they were released around the time KQ7 came out (IIRC), and that wasn't SCI, was it?

Ian

[MusicallyInspired]

oh no. KQ7 was SCI....but it was a later version called SCI32. but still SCI

[OmerMor]

yeah .. LSL7 is SCI and it has an interface similar to Torin's Passage - Another SCI game.
Ian: do you thing you can get any one of those Dr. Brain games again? I don't think I wanna buy those games just to find out .. :-)

[Grover]

I know that the last two doctor brain games were not SCI--they looked nothing like the first two, or any other SCI game, for that matter.  Plus they were awful and a real waste of time.

[OmerMor]

Looks can be deceiving.
SCI does not define the interface of the game.
You could even make SCUMM-like games in SCI.
KQ7 & Torin's passage looks very different from other SCI games but they are indeed SCI, so we need more evidence to be certain that the last 2 Dr. Brain games are not SCI.

[Grover]

Well, in any event, they were awful, and they're some of the only sierra games i've actually regretted playing.

So unless you can get em free without causing yourself a lot of trouble, I'd say this is one mystery best left unsolved

Grover

[OmerMor]

 

[Te Rangi]

Those Hoyle's card games would give Dr. Brain a run for his money. Either that, or I need to get into virtual gambling  

[Dave]

I've got the "Lost Mind of Dr. Brain" CD right here actually.  I'm new to this board, don't really know much about SCI (though I'm finding all this quite facinating).  But if you'd like me to check something for you with the game, just let me know, what files to look for and whatnot.

Dave

[OmerMor]

great. actually as a start it'll be cool if you just post here the listing of the files in this game.
you can just go to a dos box, go the the games directory, and type this command:

Code: [Select]

 dir > dir.txt
this will create a new text file called DIR.TXT, and all you need to do is to open it and copy & paste it's contents to the board.

I'm sorry if this detailed description insults your intelligence, but many people don't know today how to work in dos so I wanted to be on the safe side.  

[Dave]

Yup, I know DOS, no offense taken :-)  Here's the directory listing.  Taking a quick look at those files, I'd guess this is not an SCI games, but then I don't know enough to make a good judgement.  Looks like the entire game is on the root of the CD.

 Volume in drive E is DR
 Volume Serial Number is 5750-7105

 Directory of E:\

02/27/1995  04:00 PM         5,387,776 0DREAM01.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         7,901,696 0DREAM02.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         9,769,216 0GLOBAL.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM        14,753,792 0MAZE01.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM        17,072,128 0MAZE02.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM        17,162,752 0MAZE03.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           348,672 0SONG01.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           189,696 0SONG02.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           229,888 0SONG03.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           389,888 0SONG04.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           208,384 0SONG05.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           215,808 0SONG06.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           394,752 0SONG07.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           285,952 0SONG08.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           237,568 0SONG09.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           245,248 0SONG10.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           533,248 0SONG11.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           475,392 0SONG12.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           584,704 0SONG13.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           451,072 0SONG14.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           573,696 0SONG15.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           648,192 0SONG16.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           533,504 0SONG17.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           411,392 0SONG18.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           722,944 0SONG19.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           594,944 0SONG20.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           966,400 0SONG21.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         1,079,040 0SONG22.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         1,330,944 0SONG23.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           954,880 0SONG24.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         1,014,272 0SONG25.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         1,037,056 0SONG26.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         1,059,072 0SONG27.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         1,252,096 0SONG28.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         1,445,376 0SONG29.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         1,074,176 0SONG30.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           108,288 1TOOLBAR.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM        11,644,963 24001.SND
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           416,512 2SIERRA.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           454,656 3LOGO.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         1,177,856 4NEWRES.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         9,071,104 5INTRO.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM        16,654,336 6LAB.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         4,517,632 7FINAL.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM            57,344 8DEMO.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         7,615,744 9CAD.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM        13,195,520 9CLEFT.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         4,421,632 9DREAM.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM        14,017,280 9FILE.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         7,907,840 9MAZE.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM        16,697,088 9MUSIC.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM        13,558,016 9PENTODE.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         9,908,480 9PROGRAM.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM         9,258,496 9TRAIN.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM        12,401,152 9WORD.DLL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM                49 AUTORUN.INF
02/28/1995  07:17 AM    <DIR>          BOOTDISK
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           506,080 DRBRAIN3.EXE
02/27/1995  04:00 PM             1,908 FUN.BAT
02/28/1995  07:17 AM    <DIR>          HELPDIR
02/28/1995  07:17 AM    <DIR>          INN
02/27/1995  04:00 PM             1,908 INN.BAT
02/27/1995  04:00 PM               484 LANGUAGE.INF
02/27/1995  04:00 PM               110 ROMMAKER._AU
02/27/1995  04:00 PM            25,888 SETUP.EXE
02/27/1995  04:00 PM           270,245 SETUP.SOL
02/27/1995  04:00 PM               970 SIERRA.INF
02/27/1995  04:00 PM             3,170 WHAT.EXE
              65 File(s)    245,430,367 bytes
               3 Dir(s)               0 bytes free