What’s interesting about the looming Monkey Island anthology set is that for all the hullabaloo about its extras and packaging, there’s still a bit of mystery about what actual game files we are going to find on that USB stick.
Right now, the only legally obtainable versions of the first two games are the special editions, while Curse comes bundled with ScummVM when you buy it on GOG or Steam, so that it’ll run on modern versions of Windows. But will Limited Run Games version include the original versions as well? This question rates a little higher than trivia, since the original game files for Monkey 1 and Monkey 2 have technically not been in legal circulation since whatever the last compilation was LucasArts put out prior to the SEs. And the original executables – which ScummVM replaces – would be necessary if you wanted to go Full Authenticity and run the game in DOSBox or a vintage PC. (We know you kooks are out there.)
So, what do we know? Here’s what Limited Run Games is saying on the subject at the moment, taken from their product description:
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge, The Curse of Monkey Island, Escape from Monkey Island, and Tales of Monkey Island will all be included as DRM-free installs/executables for modern Windows platforms. We will also be working to include fresh archives of original Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2 releases on various older platforms. Usage of these archived versions will be at the owner's discretion. We can't yet guarantee which older formats will be included, but hope to confirm soon.
Fingers crossed, but that’s promising verbiage! I’m also excited by the suggestion (if I’m reading it right, anyway) that The Curse of Monkey Island will run on a native interpreter rather than ScummVM -- which runs the game fine, but doesn’t seem to support its use of iMUSE correctly. At least for me.
The outrageous boxed set from Limited Run Games will continue to be available for pre-order until January 31st. Keep saving up those wooden nickels.
AndywinXp
Aaand it's merged: the latest dev build now has all the changes! :)
So I've done some more testing, and there seems to be a bug in the music. Sometimes, when the music is transitioning from one track to another, the previous track continues to play, or it transitions to the start of the next song rather than whatever the track's up to. For example, in the Barbery Coast, when you finish talking to one Rottingham, it transitions to the main theme but keeps playing the Rottingham version. I also noticed that when Guybrush comes back from the Plunder beach to the Voodoo Lady's after finding Elaine's been kidnapped, it keeps playing the generic Plunder beach theme over the top of the Voodoo Lady's theme. This seems to only happen when you've been playing the game from the start, as I've tested it using a save and it doesn't happen. I don't know how many other times this may occur as I didn't get that far but it seems like there might just be a bug in the fix that needs to be ironed out.
Feel free to ask them about it :P
As of right now I also fixed some Full Throttle audio issues, but I can't send them those changes for now, since they depend on the latest CMI changes they haven't accepted yet *shrug*
AndywinXp
Ozzie, is this any better? This build has been built with a Release configuration, so it shouldn't give you those errors.
I ended up installing the right dlls with Visual Studio so the original worked, but a release config version is great too. So glad we've finally got this, thankyou so much!
OzzieMonkey
So I open the file and inside the rar or not, it comes up with 3 seperate errors saying it's missing these files:
MSVCP140D.dll
VCRUNTIME140D.dll
ucrtbased.dll
Ok, it appears to be missing Visual C++ 2017 runtime dlls (the debug version,
since the release version just compiles wrong on my machine)
You might be able to install them somewhere (they came installed with Visual Studio 2017, for me)
Right now I'm on a 12-hour long train travel so I can't check anything that's not on my smartphone, but I'll be sure to check again tonight or tomorrow if there's another workaround!
AndywinXp
Thanks guys, I appreciate it!
Hey Ozzie, that exe file is actually standalone, it shouldn't be able to miss any dll, strange. Could you tell me about the error? Are you running a 64 bit OS? Try running the exe just inside the rar file, and let me know
Oh, no the daily builds actually miss a big chunk of the fixes :( I'm still waiting for those go be approved and merged onto master
So I open the file and inside the rar or not, it comes up with 3 seperate errors saying it's missing these files:
MSVCP140D.dll
VCRUNTIME140D.dll
ucrtbased.dll
Hey Ozzie, that exe file is actually standalone, it shouldn't be able to miss any dll, strange. Could you tell me about the error? Are you running a 64 bit OS? Try running the exe just inside the rar file, and let me know
Oh, no the daily builds actually miss a big chunk of the fixes :( I'm still waiting for those go be approved and merged onto master
AndywinXp
Actually... would you folks mind testing this?!
I will also happily give this a test soon! Way to go!
AndywinXp
Actually... would you folks mind testing this? I have already gone through the whole game twice while testing all the changes, but I would love a second opinion.
Click here!
Here's a list of what I have changed/implemented:
- Implemented seamless crossfading between different music tracks
- Implemented seamless crossfading for a single music/sfx track (i.e. loops, or iMUSE JUMP instructions, generally)
- Fixed iMUSE Digital transition types (which means that the Barbery Coast arrival music OzzieMonkey was refering to is fixed and doesn't stop before finishing!)
- Fixed volume and panning issues which caused sounds to appear in the wrong side of the stereo mix and to play at (incorrect) zero volume
- Implemented the... "thing" which temporarily lowers the volume of the music while speech is playing, just like in the original
- Rebalanced the whole audio mix which was TOO DAMN LOW!
Hey, I tried ovewriting my scummvm.exe with the one in your rar file, and now it comes up with several error messages saying a bunch of .dll files are missing? Did I do something wrong or was there meant to be more files in the rar?
Oh, and it only has the SCUMM module compiled inside, so this means other games outside of SCUMM realm won't work at all.
Click here!
Here's a list of what I have changed/implemented:
- Implemented seamless crossfading between different music tracks
- Implemented seamless crossfading for a single music/sfx track (i.e. loops, or iMUSE JUMP instructions, generally)
- Fixed iMUSE Digital transition types (which means that the Barbery Coast arrival music OzzieMonkey was refering to is fixed and doesn't stop before finishing!)
- Fixed volume and panning issues which caused sounds to appear in the wrong side of the stereo mix and to play at (incorrect) zero volume
- Implemented the... "thing" which temporarily lowers the volume of the music while speech is playing, just like in the original
- Rebalanced the whole audio mix which was TOO DAMN LOW!
Actually... I have already finished but I'm waiting for this pull request https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/pull/2672 to be merged, which contains the last fixes needed.
I really don't know how it works, and if the folks responsible for ScummVM releases are going to include all my fixes in the next one, but I would LOVE to have this (theoretical) version included in the box (and updated both on Steam and GOG).