DREAMM 2.0 Released

[Aaron Giles]

Happy to finally announce the official release of DREAMM 2.0 for Windows and MacOS. Downloads and documentation here:

 

https://aarongiles.com/dreamm

 

DREAMM is a bespoke emulator for DOS/Windows/FM-Towns LucasArts games, supporting all the classic SCUMM games, plus the early 3D adventures, several mid-90s Star Wars games, and even Afterlife.

 

Have fun!

[NightWalker]

In the fist place, I would like to say "Thank you, Aaron". This emulator is one of the coolest thing I have ever seen about videogames. I like playing the games in the original form, so I haven't played Grim Fandango in years, because I didn't want to play the remaster. Now it's amazing (a miracle!) to see the game working again in my new PC after all these years.

 

I don't know if this is the place for it, but I wanted to tell you that the game seems to work fine, except the Shift key (which is used to run) doesn't work properly with the numeric pad. It works fine with the cursor keys and the game works perfectly with a gamepad, though. But I always played Grim Fandango with numeric pad, because I find it confortable, since I have all the functions of the game there ("5" is look and "+" is take, for example). I write this in case you want to fix that. If you press the shift key before the 8 number, Manny doesn't run. Or if you are running and try to turn with the numeric pad, Manny walks. I have tried this with my laptop keyboard and even with an external USB keyboard.

 

Again, thank you very much for your excellent work! This is an authentic DREAM (hehe) for old LucasArts fans!

Edited March 16, 2023 by NightWalker

[Aaron Giles]

13 hours ago, NightWalker said:

except the Shift key (which is used to run) doesn't work properly with the numeric pad. It works fine with the cursor keys

Glad to hear you're able to enjoy Grim Fandango again! Thanks for reporting the shift key issue; I had never tried that particular combo before. I'll put it on the list of things to fix for the next round.

 

Cheers,

Aaron

[NightWalker]

13 hours ago, Aaron Giles said:

Glad to hear you're able to enjoy Grim Fandango again! Thanks for reporting the shift key issue; I had never tried that particular combo before. I'll put it on the list of things to fix for the next round.

 

Cheers,

Aaron

Thank you very much!

[ThunderPeel2001]

On 3/16/2023 at 9:19 AM, NightWalker said:

I haven't played Grim Fandango in years, because I didn't want to play the remaster

 

Great that you're helping test DREAMM, but as a huge Grim Fandango fan you're missing out by not at least trying it... There's so many improvements in the Remaster that place it leagues ahead of the original.
 

On 3/16/2023 at 9:19 AM, NightWalker said:

But I always played Grim Fandango with numeric pad, because I find it confortable, since I have all the functions of the game there ("5" is look and "+" is take, for example).

 

Yes! The numberpad is definitely the way to play GF... I admit that this was a bizarre oversight from the Remaster team to not include it. (I did flag it in the DF forums of course...)

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by ThunderPeel2001

[Lagomorph01]

Dear Aaron,

 

I finally got around to testing your fabulous interpreter with Escape from Monkey Island, and it looks, sounds and plays absolutely fantastic!

Couple of nitpicks:

- The game sometimes reloads the conversation tree options after you've selected an option and the characters are already talking. If you select an option, the new conversation will play through the old conversation.

- After playing insult sword fighting with Ozzie Mandrill on Lucre Island, the arrows with which you can select the insult don't disappear. They did disappear eventually, but I don't know quite when.

- Sometimes the 'enter' button doesn't respond while mapped to X on my PS4 controller, (but this might just be a bug of the Enjoyable software.)

 

I'll report it if I find anything else.

 

Playing this on a 2.3 Ghz MacBook Pro with Ventura 13.1 with PS4 controller hooked up through Enjoyable V1.2.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Lagomorph01
spelling

[Didero]

Thank you for your hard work on DREAMM, it's great to have (more) ways to play these fantastic old games on modern computers!

The development posts on Mastodon are also very interesting, even though most of it goes over my head.

 

I do have one request for a future version: In 1.0, you could just point DREAMM to a folder, and it would load the game from there, but in DREAMM 2.0, it copies the data to its own folder. I already have a well-organised folder with my games, so copying that data feels a bit wasteful. Could it be possible to add an option to DREAMM to not copy the data but read it from an existing directory? Or is there a technical reason that can't be done?

Thanks!

[Aaron Giles]

On 5/5/2023 at 10:49 AM, Lagomorph01 said:

I finally got around to testing your fabulous interpreter with Escape from Monkey Island, and it looks, sounds and plays absolutely fantastic!

Couple of nitpicks:

- The game sometimes reloads the conversation tree options after you've selected an option and the characters are already talking. If you select an option, the new conversation will play through the old conversation.

- After playing insult sword fighting with Ozzie Mandrill on Lucre Island, the arrows with which you can select the insult don't disappear. They did disappear eventually, but I don't know quite when.

- Sometimes the 'enter' button doesn't respond while mapped to X on my PS4 controller, (but this might just be a bug of the Enjoyable software.)

Thanks for the thorough report! Can you tell me which version of EFMI you are running? Also, go into the options menu and select "Alter Gee Whiz Factor"; at the top right of that screen will be the game's version number. Let me know what that is.

[Aaron Giles]

On 5/7/2023 at 12:06 PM, Didero said:

I do have one request for a future version: In 1.0, you could just point DREAMM to a folder, and it would load the game from there, but in DREAMM 2.0, it copies the data to its own folder. I already have a well-organised folder with my games, so copying that data feels a bit wasteful. Could it be possible to add an option to DREAMM to not copy the data but read it from an existing directory? Or is there a technical reason that can't be done?

Was wondering if that was going to bug anyone!

 

The reason is not so much technical as practical: by managing the location where the game are, I can ensure that everything is always laid out correctly, which simplifies the environment during game run time. Essentially it "normalizes" the layout of the game files regardless of where they originated, be it from a physical disk, disk image, ZIP file, or subdirectory. It also means I can offer a logical "delete" function, where I don't have to worry about potentially deleting something important.

 

I realize this takes more disk space, but for the games in question, even the sum total is not all that significant these days. If it really bothered you, you could probably open the install folder and change the lec-xxxx folder into a soft link to the directory where you have the files. However, if you do that, stay away from the "Delete Game" option in that case!

[Lagomorph01]

11 hours ago, Aaron Giles said:

Thanks for the thorough report! Can you tell me which version of EFMI you are running? Also, go into the options menu and select "Alter Gee Whiz Factor"; at the top right of that screen will be the game's version number. Let me know what that is.

The Gee Whiz Factor screen says, vQA12. The launcher says V1.0, English.

[danielalbu]

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