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Late night release of DREAMM 2.0b10! https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta/ Changes since 2.0b9 =================== * Added more game variants * Added proper 3D clipping to fix shadows and water effects in EFMI * Fixed crash at EFMI disc switch point * Improved exception handling from assembly emulation cores * Minimal support for Windows structured exception generation * Fixed bad behavior when double-playing a sound buffer (might help EFMI delays) * Disabled code that might have enabled floating-point exceptions on Intel machines * Fixed twitchy screen resolution handling in some FM Towns games * MacOS: Fixed handling of files with trailing periods * MacOS: Prettified the DMG

Already 6 people interested? 🤩 That should be enough to get started, and late comers can of course always catch up. So I think we can set a starting date, so everyone who doesn't have the book yet and is interested has a chance to get it. Here's my suggestion: * New chapters unlock Thursdays * Treat later chapters as spoilers, in case you already know the book * Reading is not mandatory to participate in the discussion, as long as it's on topic Everone who joins late can just catch up to the current chapter. I'll try to keep track of the current state in the top post. Prologue and first chapter are unlocked next Thursday, Feb. 2. All in favor say aye! 😁

For me, one of the biggest oversights in Grim Fandango Remastered (on PC at least) is that the game has no frame rate cap of any kind, and no option to enable vsync. As a result of this, the video card will render as many frames as possible all the time, which basically means it will be working at full capacity (higher temperatures, more noise) for no benefit whatsoever. If you want to avoid this, make sure to force vsync in your video card's control panel before playing.

Sorry, should have been more clear on my description. The music doesn’t play at all through out the game with two exceptions: cutscenes and options menu (pressing F1). The sounds effects and voices work everywhere though. I have a Macbook Air M1 (2020) with Ventura 12.2 (SSD).

Glad to hear it! (Well, mostly.) I've never had any problems with the music. Can you elaborate on what's going on with the music for you? I don't quite understand where it's missing. Also, can you tell me about your system? (Mac/Windows? What OS? Are you running from an SSD or a spinning disk?) I haven't looked into that yet. Hopefully for the next one! In the adventure games this shouldn't be any different than before, because the mouse cursor tracks with the real position of the mouse cursor on your system's screen. If you change aspect ratio, then the displayed area gets bigger/smaller, and the real position of your mouse will track along with it. This is most noticeable in windowed mode, where you can move the mouse pointer in/out of the window smoothly, but it also applied in full screen mode. DOSBox captures the mouse pointer and reports "raw" values to the game, so it makes sense that it would behave differently. I was aiming for cleaner integration with your host machine.

Thanks Aaron for your hard work, this update successfully fixed the multilanguage version of MI1! I did notice (in 2.0 but IIRC not in 1.0) that using the aspect ratio correction messes up the ratio between the vertical mouse cursor speed and the horizontal one, while on Dosbox the cursor movement is as fast on the Y axis as it is on the X axis. I'm guessing that this could very well be intentional though, as stretching a screen with respect to one of the two axes would by definition also stretch the perception of the mouse cursor movement. 🙂

Big improvements with this version for EFMI. The audio is no longer delayed and the water effects are working perfectly!! No crashes during my short play. The only remaining issue is the music not playing, the only exception is the menu. As for MI1&2, I’m still having the variants issue. It seems that some variants are added/installed again every time I drag their folder. Monkey Island 1 variants: Monkey Island 2 variants:

Shouldn't all in favour say arr? But yeah, this is a great idea, I've wanted to read this for, I dunno, twenty years, since I first read Ron mentioning it as an inspiration for Monkey Island. Maybe after this I'll finally get past the first few chapters of Treasure Island as well!

Yes! So true. It's somewhat ironic because Tim has shared a story about how the producer on the game tried to force him to cut that part. She said there's wasn't any money for it, but Tim got the art team to start producing it without her knowledge and by then it was too late. (Something along those lines.) It's ironic because it just stops the story dead... the puzzles aren't great and personally I hate having to deal with the fire beavers (having to wait for them to trundle into the right position...!). I LOVE Grim Fandango. LOVE LOVE LOVE. For me it's probably the pinnacle of LucasArts's adventure games, but I can't help but feel the game would be better without that section. Rubacava is so much more enjoyable (well, it's the best section of the game to be honest). Again, I 100% agree. Yep, I'm with you on this one, too. The original game used "." to switch Manny's head between objects (a feature that was left out of the Remaster for some weird reason) but although I think you're right, I've never found it too much of an issue because the world isn't too cluttered -- and I just used "." when it was. I've always found it pretty clear what Manny is looking at despite the shortcomings of the system. And really, re: the tank controls, they never bothered me either. They worked fine... that is, until I played the Remaster. The new controls are such a wonderful improvement that it's very hard to go back. They keep the 3D immersion while making them far more intuitive. (Playing through with Tank Controls is the one achievement I'll never get on the Remaster -- sorry, Tim!) They were forging new territory! Some great advances were made, and some mistakes, too. Alas. There's a few things that the Remaster missteps on (to anyone who hasn't played it: they're very minor, don't let them put you off -- the Remaster is great!). As someone who loves the game so much, it's a bit painful at times. I did my best on the forums to get them to fix the niggles, but my comments seemed largely met with bewilderment. (Felt like: "Why would anyone care about the game so much??") Or maybe they were just exhausted. Tim didn't do me any favours by promising that Grim Fandango Remastered would be a "Criterion Edition" of the game. (Aside: For those who don't know, Criterion try to release the "perfect" version of a film for movie lovers. They invented the audio commentary, make loads of unique content and documentaries, but more importantly than all that: They make sure the presentation of the film is absolutely flawless. They re-scan the negatives themselves and bring in the original Director of Photography and Director to work with them ensuring the colour timing is perfect. They really go to the nth degree so you can trust that what they release is absolutely the best presentation of the film possible, and they rarely (if ever) get it wrong.) Tim talked specifically about how tiny details would be addressed by the original team in the Remaster, something only Double Fine could do. He mentioned the tiny symbol on Velaco's cap (I think, it's been a while) as an example of something only his team would know what the original intention was. Obviously as a fan I gobbled all that up, but really it was what Tim had to say to get Sony to trust them with the IP. Of course, there's SO many things they got right: The controls, the updated music, the new lighting, the reduced compression on the videos... The fact that it exists at all. The Remaster IS wonderful. But there's still things that still irk, if you're wanting the "Criterion" edition. Here's a list of tiny quibbles off the top of my head (for anyone who cares -- most of this list won't bother a new player): For a game as big and sprawling as GF, you need a ton of saves if you want to go back and try different things out. (And we adventure fans often like doing that.) Unfortunately there was a limitation with the save space on the PS4, so they had to limit the number of saves on that platform to 8 slots... and Sony (of course) wouldn't allow any other version of the game to be "better" than the PS4 one, so that limit was artificially imposed on the PC version, too. One of the very rare times that the original (which had no limitation) was better. There's still quite a few shadow glitches and bugs in the controls in various places (but especially Year 3). And the animations that loop in the backgrounds of various scenes don't animate properly throughout the entire game. They're missing a few frames, so they don't animate their loop smoothly. Very minor: but some of the game textures weren't improved at all. (Most of the time you can't tell, but there's a few times when the game can still look uglier than it should -- like the ticket printing machine, etc.) Some sound files don't play properly or cut out (eg. the Cat Race announcer in Year 2 stops talking randomly, losing some of the funny dialogue, clues to solves puzzles, and atmosphere). The new scene that animates the poetry recital was very cool. A lovely little treat for fans. But I wish they'd fixed the hole in the base of Olivia's skull that allows you to see the other side of her head as the camera moves past. (Again, very minor.) How about this for a nit pick: The original game manual made it clear you're supposed to use the Num Pad to play the game, and it works really well. They used all the buttons around the that number pad keys to do everything you need... in the Remastered, they dropped this functionality. Possibly the worst thing was how the wonderful transition at the end of the game was altered. It's probably the only other moment where the original is better. A very odd choice. Oh, and they never fixed the "Gold Flakes" typo on the PS4... Boy, oh boy. The Golo Flakes debacle... Sucks if you're a first time player and a clue like that has been removed due to a typo. That really irritated me. And I can't see how Shafer, Tsacle or Chan could not care about it, either. Manny picks up a bottle of liqueur that contains metal flakes... an important clue for a tricky puzzle later in the game. But instead of letting the player know there's metal in the bottle, the Remaster tells them it's filled with flakes of "golo" instead of "gold". Imagine a Criterion edition of Casablanca... "Play it again... Pam". I knew the team were probably overwhelmed, so I even made them a replacement PNG to drop in, just to make it as easy as possible for them to fix (exact right dimensions and size and everything -- all they had to do was replace a single asset), but the response from the Remaster team on the DF forums was baffling. It was like, "really? who cares about that??". They even took the time to put a bottle of "Golo Flakes" in Day of the Tentacle Remastered. (And had plans to put one in Full Throttle Remastered, too, but it was nixed by someone before release.) Still, as a I say, these are all minor quibbles from a die hard (how much of a die hard? I had started my own Remaster project before DF announced theirs and they gracious thanked me in the Remaster credits, although I certainly didn't deserve it). Again, anyone who hasn't played GF before: The Remastered is still the best way, don't let these little moans put you off. And I remain grateful to DF for making it happen at all!

Thanks for the testing and great feedback! I'm hot on the trail of the water effects bugs, and have fixed the crasher on disk switch for the next beta. Basically, they were tearing everything down and then restarting it all after the disc switch, and there was a bug lurking on the teardown path. I'm hoping next time you'll be able to finish EMI. I'm pretty stumped on why the cook can't get over the bridge in the restaurant, but have some ideas for how to figure it out. As for the Grim inventory issue, that's very odd, and tops to look at once I get EMI working a bit more solidly.