Adventure gamers of old will surely recall that some of the best adventures available were SCUMM titles. No, not a slanderous term, SCUMM (or Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) is a LucasArts scripting engine that was used for the creation of interactive graphical adventure games. And very good adventures, as it turned out.
Modern computers can play these games thanks to the ScummVM interpreter, and happily ScummVM has been ported to the jailbroken iPhone / iPod touch. As Gizmodo points out, the arrival of ScummVM to Apple’s new mobile platform is really a marraige made in heaven.
After a long wait, here is the application that makes the iPhone absolutely perfect: ScummVM, the emulation engine that allows you to play LucasArts and Sierra graphic adventures, is now fully working on the iPhone. After trying it I can tell you that if there’s a platform designed to play these kind of games,it’s the iPhone. In fact, these are the only games that truly feel at home on the iPhone, thanks to its great touchscreen support, even better than Apple’s native software.
The list of fully supported games is long and of quality:
- Day of the Tentacle
- The Dig
- Flight of the Amazon Queen
- Full Throttle
- Gobliiins
- Gobliins 2
- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- King’s Quest 3
- Loom
- Maniac Mansion
- Monkey Island 1: The Secret of Monkey Island
- Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
- Sam & Max Hit the Road
- Simon the Sorcerer
- Simon the Sorcerer 2
- Zak McKracken
- Alien Mindbenders
And the control scheme is as close to a perfect touchscreen adaptation as one could hope for.
ScummVM fully supports multi-touch to simulate the behavior of the mouse using gestures. With a single tap you left click, but for a right click you hold one finger and tap with another. To toggle click and drag, which is necessary in some games like Monkey Island 3, you “hold one finger on screen, swipe another up from bottom to top." Then you can drag something, lift your finger to drop it and it will automatically switch back to normal.
The games play wonderfully and bring to the iPhone and iPod touch some of the best adventure gaming moments the desktop PC has ever known. Don’t miss the chance to experience these rich titles for yourselves. (And on the go, if you like!)
